If You Want More, Then Jump
by savvyliterate
Summary: On one screen was his connecting flight to Seattle, to a cruise he didn't want to take. On the other was a flight to Paris, leaving in 90 minutes. He thought of his girlfriend and the woman who haunted his dreams. Was he willing to settle? Or did he want more? (JavaJunkie AU after season 3)
1. Points of Departure

**Editor's note:** This story came about after reading DSLeo's "Dark Roman Whine" and wanting to read more stories where Luke winds up in Europe with the girls instead of going on the cruise with Nicole. The story title comes from the Pointer Sisters' "Jump (for my Love)" because I was horribly stuck on a title and this song came up on my Spotify playlist and seemed to fit. The chapter titles come from episodes of "Babylon 5." Everything is canon up to the end of season 3 then goes wildly AU.

* * *

 _Chapter 1: Points of Departure_

Luke couldn't decide which was worse – hospitals or airports.

OK, really, by far the answer had to be hospitals. All those body parts and fluids and those strange smells that were a mixture of industrial cleaner, death, and anything the human body could emit. He'd spent more time than he'd wanted at the hospital, had seen his father wither away in a hospital bed until he wondered if leaving him with a gun or an overdose of drugs would be kinder than watching the shell of the man he'd become die.

But airports. Airports were a different type of torture, especially since 9/11. There was all that security to get through now, taking off the shoes, going through a metal detector, dumping your stuff in an assortment of bins and trying to retrieve it all again. There were dealing with all the people, the boredom, and that didn't even begin to describe the flights themselves. Luke also hated flying, and there were different levels to that hatred. The big jets, oh those were fine. Even the regional planes weren't terrible. But the puddle-jumpers like the one they'd taken from Hartford to Newark? Luke wished he'd been clubbed unconscious instead of having to deal with that tiny, tiny plane where they had to sit in weird places to make sure the weight was distributed evenly. He spent the entire hour-long flight gripping the armrest tightly and hoping Nicole didn't notice.

And then came the next fun part of airports – delays. Thanks to storms out west, flights were delayed left and right. They'd barely stepped up to their connecting gate when the attendant gave them an apologetic look and $400 flight vouchers. "I'm sorry, we just don't know when your flight will be leaving," she said.

Nicole scowled at her, but Luke steered her quickly toward a nearby restaurant. "There's nothing we can do," he said, knowing there was a time for venting and now wasn't it.. "Look, let's just get a drink. It's not all bad." And a bit more time to forget he was about to be shoved onto another metal tube and hurled across the country, but damn it, he agreed to this. Three weeks of traveling, because he had wanted to at least try with Nicole. Because a small part of him was envious that Lorelai and Rory were traveling Europe when he couldn't remember the last time he'd taken a break longer than a few days. And even then, it was either going to the cabin or into New York to see Liz. He wanted to try, because Lorelai hadn't stopped him, and he couldn't wait forever.

Three hours away from home, and he already ached to go back, remembering why he hated to travel so much. Or maybe it was the company. No, he wasn't being fair. He liked Nicole just fine. She was intelligent, steady, and dependable. There was no reason for him not to go on this trip. He toyed with the water glass the waiter set in front of him and tried to ignore the twinge of wrongness in his gut.

" _Don't get engaged."_

The echoes of dream Lorelai bounced around in Luke's head like a song stuck on repeat, less annoying than an endless round of "Small World" but still enough to throw him off his equilibrium. He found himself studying the sea of people milling about them, expecting the crowd to part and Lorelai and Rory to emerge. But that was ridiculous considering they'd left the country well before he had. The Gilmores weren't expected back for another four weeks at least, and he'd be home safe and sound by then. And not leaving Stars Hollow for a long time, he decided.

Nicole heaved a sigh and tossed an annoyed look at their gate. "Well, it's a good thing we built in extra time into this part of the trip," she said and pulled a large binder out of her bag. "There's got to be wi-fi here somewhere. I can go ahead and sign us up for activities."

"Activities?"

"That's what one does on a cruise."

Considering he'd been waffling up to the point where he loaded the suitcases in the truck, Luke realized he hadn't bothered to look up to see what they would exactly be doing other than sleeping and eating and sex, not that there had been much of that lately. His desires had taken a different turn in the weeks since the Independence Inn burned and Lorelai had sought shelter with him and Jess, confessing her dreams in the middle of the night. The dates with Nicole were still nice, but he had lost all interest in sleeping with her. It was why he agreed to this cruise, and because Lorelai had urged him to go. He didn't want to lead Nicole on, and Lorelai and Rory had been right. A cruise screamed commitment, and if it went well, perhaps … who knows? But if two people couldn't co-habitate in a tiny cabin for a few weeks, it didn't speak well to the future at all.

 _"Don't get engaged."_

Luke shook off dream Lorelai's voice once more accepted the brochure from Nicole and absently paged through it. Not all of it was bad. There was a fishing excursion, and that was intriguing. For a few moments, he regretted not bringing his own supplies, but quickly realized it wouldn't be practical. The craft beer sampling wouldn't be bad either. He grinned at the one activity where sled dog puppies would be brought aboard the ship. Lorelai and Rory would love it. He would have to get pictures for them.

 _And you're not supposed to be thinking of Lorelai while on this trip_ , a small part of his brain reminded him.

 _Shut up_ , the rest of his mind shot back.

There was an axe-throwing competition, and if there was anything Lorelai would goad him into, it would be that. Then she would insist on doing it, and then he'd have to save her from herself and everyone else around them. There were storytellers and different shore excursions and it wouldn't be so bad. There would be some tours of local B&Bs, and he made a mental note to grab a small notebook and take notes for Lorelai for the inn. It wouldn't be bad to take some notes for Sookie as well, regarding the food. He'd have to keep his eye out for interesting books for Rory and something kitschy for Lorelai and …

"Aren't you listening?"

For a moment, he fully expected to see Lorelai sitting across from him, and somewhere that rational part of his brain was hitting itself against the wall. _Nicole_. It was Nicole sitting there, appearing to have successfully transferred her annoyance at the delay from the airline workers to him. Lorelai wasn't here, she was in Europe, she didn't stop him from going on this trip.

 _But you can stop yourself_ , that other part of his brain reminded him.

"Sorry, I was just … these are all really good." Luke offered Nicole a half-hearted smile and started to hand the brochure back.

"Aren't they?" Nicole had her laptop out and was signed into the cruise ship's website. She waved away the brochure. "I've just signed us up for a couple's yoga class."

He blinked and leaned forward, wanting to confirm the absurd suggestion he'd just heard. "I'm sorry, what?"

"Yoga! It'll be fun. Make you limber and relaxed."

He quickly waved her away. "Oh no, you're doing that one on your own."

"Why not?"

Because, Luke thought, Lorelai had broken her leg attempting to do yoga. The town spent weeks helping to take care of her and made sure she and Rory had food and could get around. It had been the first time he'd spent a serious amount of time with her outside the diner. He and Sookie had made sure her kitchen was stocked, and it was his first time really inside the Crap Shack. Then his toolbox had come along with him and he'd found himself making repairs to the old house. Then Lorelai had _named_ his toolbox like she did everything else, and it felt like he'd belonged somewhere for the first time since his father died.

Luke sighed and stared back at the brochure. Oh, who was he kidding? He certainly didn't belong here.

Nicole kept rattling off a list of other activities that had nothing to do with the ones listed on the brochure he held, and it felt like he was being pushed into further into a skin that wasn't his. Dances and formal dinners and endless amounts of buffets that surely were the reason why the world hated America. Spa appointments and casinos. Live singers at little onboard jazz clubs. The more Nicole spoke, the more his gut churned, nearly turning into full-blown nausea.

At their departure gate, a time flashed onto the board. 45 minutes to departure, boarding in 20 minutes.

"Finally," Nicole said in triumph and closed the laptop. "I'm going to the bathroom."

"I uh … good idea. I'll just meet you at the gate?"

"Yes, that's a plan." She bussed his cheek and walked away. Luke settled the bill and escaped.

Instead of the restroom, he found himself wandering through the little shops lining the terminal between the gates. He could see Lorelai ducking in and out of them, spending ridiculous amounts of money on the same thing she could buy outside of the airport just because they were in the airport. He found himself drawn to one display with an outrageously pink handbag with glittering stones of various sizes sewn onto it. A large daisy was appliqued to the side. It was hideous. For the first time that day, he grinned. Lorelai would love it.

Luke had taken a step toward the store entrance before remembering that he couldn't do this. He couldn't begin to explain to Nicole why he was bringing a present for Lorelai on the plane. She was persona non grata in Nicole's book, and he really didn't want to spend a nearly six-hour flight across the country arguing over his best friend.

The phone in his pocket began buzzing and he fished it out. He didn't even want a cell phone in the first place, but Nicole had talked him into it for the trip. He'd only kept it turned on in case Jess or Liz needed him or in case there was any last-minute problems at the diner that Caesar needed his help for. The number on the display wasn't familiar and was unnaturally long. Probably someone trying to sell him something. He nearly shoved it back in his pocket, but gut instinct had him answering it instead. "Yeah? Who is this?"

"Luke!" Lorelai's voice, scratchy and more scared than he'd ever heard it came over the line. The only other times he'd heard her sound close to this scared was when her father had been admitted to the hospital, the night Rory had gone missing, and when Rory and Jess had gotten in their accident. "Oh thank God, I found you. I didn't know who else to call and Caesar gave me this number when I called the diner, and I'm so glad you have a cell phone now."

"What's wrong?" He'd taken two running steps before remembering that he was in an airport and she was in Europe, and they had just announced his plane was boarding. Luke swung around to see Nicole walk out of the bathroom and scan the terminal for him. He quickly dashed around a corner and out of her line of sight, walking in the opposite direction of his gate as he talked. "Are you OK? Is Rory OK?"

"Rory's fine. My purse was stolen. They didn't get my passport or my cash, that's all on me. But my debit card, my credit cards, my _cell phone_. All of those are gone and we only have enough cash on us for a few days." Her voice was high-pitched and panicked, but she wasn't in tears. He figured Rory had to be in earshot. "I was wondering if you could get some money wired to us until I can get a new debit card out here."

"Yeah, yeah, of course. Why didn't you call your parents?" He angled the small carry-on bag he had with him until he reached the front pocket and pulled out a thick sheaf of paper. He'd stuffed it in his bag at the last second, not even sure why he'd done so. The very detailed itinerary had been all Rory's doing. It was a compromise between Rory's need to schedule everything and Lorelai's spontaneity. There was a list of dates, hostels, and embassies. Rory had passed them out to everyone she deemed important before they left: Sookie, Babette and Morey, Patty, Lorelai's parents – and him.

Lorelai's laugh was short and bitter. "I'm _not_ calling my parents. I would never hear the end of this. _Never_. We have enough cash for a couple days, but after that Rory's going to have to become the orphan child who sells flowers on the street corner."

"I am not," he heard Rory protest in the background, and it made him smile despite everything.

"I've spent the past hour calling the credit card companies and the bank, and thank god the charges they attempted can be reversed. I am never going to prank call fraud protection again."

Luke nearly walked into an airline worker pushing a person in a wheelchair. He quickly mouthed an apology as he skirted to one side, weaving through a family with several small children that looked to be on the verge of having a meltdown. "OK, OK … you're in Paris?"

"Just got here from London maybe five hours ago." Lorelai gave another bitter laugh. "We'd barely gotten checked into the hostel when a quick tug, someone else's fingers in my pocket, and my purse and phone were gone. I managed to chase down the guy with my phone, but he'd already passed it off."

"You chased down the thief? Geez, Lorelai, you coulda gotten hurt!" Or worse, and the thought chilled him to the bone.

"I'm fine," she waved it off. "Got Rory's itinerary, huh?"

"Told you it would come in handy," background Rory said.

Luke heard his name being paged over the loudspeaker and pulled the phone away from his ear long enough to hear it be called a second time. He glanced at his watch. The plane. Shit.

"Did I hear your name? What's … oh my God. You're at the airport!"

He stared down the terminal toward the gate, then turned away again. "Lorelai, it's OK."

"The cruise with Nicole. I'm so sorry, I forgot! All the time differences and the dates and the travel, and I'm _sorry_. I should let you go. Nevermind. I'll call my parents or Sookie and …"

"Lorelai," Luke yelled as loudly as he dared into the phone, but it seemed to be enough to cut into her babbling. "I'll get you the money, that's not a problem. You can wait a few hours for it, yeah?"

"Yes, but Luke …"

"No buts," he ordered. "I'm not gonna leave you and Rory stranded in Paris. I'll have it wired to a bank close to your hostel. Same one that's on the itinerary?"

"Yes," Lorelai said with audible relief. "Oh my God, I owe you big for this. I owe you so big. There's an HSBC near the hostel and the staff speaks English. Just give them the hostel address and Western Union should be able to find it."

"OK. Go back to your hostel. I'll wire it there through Western Union. Go to bed. It'll be waiting for you in the morning."

"You are the actual best. Just know I owe you the biggest hug as soon as I get off the plane and get back to Stars Hollow." Her voice dropped to a near whisper. "I'm probably going to cry all over you, just a warning, because I'm not crying in front of Rory."

"I know you're not," he said gently, wishing more than anything at that moment to give her that hug. "Get some sleep."

"You try to as well." He could feel her smile over the phone. "Have a safe flight. Say hi to Nicole for me."

The call disconnected as Luke heard his name over the loudspeaker once more. He shoved the phone back in his pocket and found himself staring up at the large bank of screens in front of him. He had wound up in front of one of the departure and arrival boards. He saw his boarding flight to Seattle. Then he noticed about two screens to the left the row of flights leaving for Paris. One was leaving in the next 90 minutes.

The thought that crossed his mind was so unlike him that he recoiled in denial. Then it repeated itself, a bit louder and a lot more insistent. No, Luke insisted, he couldn't do what his gut was urging him to do. He wasn't that kind of guy. He thought of his girlfriend and the woman who haunted his dreams. He thought of couples yoga classes, of Lorelai's scared voice, of a nameless punk who'd stolen her purse and he really itched to punish, of endless buffets and sex he didn't want to have and everything rolled into and out of his mind all at once.

Was he willing to settle? Or did he want more?

"You're the one who has to live with your actions," his father once told him. "You have to look at yourself in the mirror in the morning. Can you live with what you're about to do?"

Yes, I can, Luke thought, and walked back to his gate.


	2. A Voice in the Wilderness

**Editor's note:** Another little nod to DSLeo in our initial chats about this story. And Luke just might inspire the next round of customs forms when I go overseas next time.

* * *

 _Chapter 2: A Voice in the Wilderness_

It was the same answer she'd gotten an hour earlier, and the same as the hour before that. The English-speaking teller had looked at Lorelai with a mixture of annoyance and pity, though heavily on the annoyance this go-around. He reminded her of Michel, and if there was one person she knew how to handle, it was him.

It was just after noon, and she'd visited the HSBC once an hour since it opened. The money _should_ be there. It had to come eventually. If she and Rory were careful, they had enough euro on them for a few days, but their reservation at the hostel was only for three more nights. After that, it was a train to Avignon, and surely the money would arrive before then.

She took a moment to lean against the side of the bank and compose herself before walking the rest of the way back to the little outdoor café where Rory sat in a chair, curled up with a book, coffee, and a basket of fresh croissants. Lorelai had taken two bites of hers, then her legendary appetite failed her. The delectable pastry tasted like ash, and she excused herself because she refused to be upset in front of Rory.

Oh God, what a disaster this all was. She'd had the sense to carry her cash, her rail pass, and her passport in the travel document holder strapped around her waist under her clothes. But she kept her cards separate, just in case of something like this. She and Rory had checked into the hostel, and she'd decided to take out some more euro from an ATM. They'd gone barely a block from the hostel when it happened out of nowhere. A slice of a knife had cut the cross-body strap of her purse, and nimble fingers had dipped into her jeans pocket for her phone. That had been the biggest violation, and the groping still made her shudder. Her scream had alerted Rory, prevented the same thing from happening to her.

It happened all the time, the police and the incredibly kind people at the American embassy told them. They were smart, they'd done everything right, but it still happened. Such was life. She'd done everything right with the inn, and it still burned. She'd tried to do everything right in her love life, and now she had a failed almost marriage, a strained relationship with her daughter's father, and an unacknowledged crush on one of her closest friends. She'd done everything right and now she was stranded in Europe with Rory and just two heartbeats away from breaking down into hysterical sobs. But she couldn't. Even though she and Rory were best friends, she was still the mom, and she knew Rory was more worried than she let on.

So Lorelai plastered a smile on her face and walked back to the café, dropping into the vacant seat across from Rory.

"Nothing yet?" Rory asked, still reading.

"Not yet. Clearly Western Union decided to send the money via carrier pigeon."

"You know it's 1 a.m. in Seattle," Rory said casually.

"I know, I know," Lorelai replied. But Luke's plane should have touched down hours earlier, if her calculations had been correct. For a moment, she was seized by the fear that the plane had crashed, then the thought disappeared as quickly as it had come. If a catastrophe of that magnitude had happened, it'd be all over the news - even in France.

"Mom, why don't you just call Grandma?"

"Nope." Lorelai fished out a magazine she'd picked up in London and stared down at it, not really seeing the words on the cover. "Luke won't let us down."

"I know, but we really should have a backup plan."

"And that's Sookie." But a distant backup. Sookie was pregnant, and Lorelai knew firsthand the way hormones could screw you over. It would send Sookie into a panic, which would make Jackson furious, which would add to Sookie's stress, and none of it would be good for the baby. Damn it, she would call Miss Patty, Babette, Kirk, even Taylor before calling Emily and Richard. She would even grit her teeth and call her grandmother before her parents. But that wasn't going to happen because Luke would come through for her. It was just a fact.

"Where are you having the card sent?" Rory reached for a croissant, absently taking a bite out of it.

"Because of the time involved, it should get to us in Avignon thanks to my smarty pants Chilton grad and her itinerary."

"Which you mocked endlessly," Rory pointed out.

"Well, that is the difference between your Chilton education and my lackadaisy ways," Lorelai teased, grateful not for the first time in the past couple of days for her daughter's ruthless need to plan everything as much as possible.

"We can go visit the L'Arc de Triomphe and the Champs-Elysées," Rory suggested, finally looking up from her book.

"Yes, with all the shops where we currently can't afford anything."

"It's not like we can fit all that much in our backpacks."

"It's the principle of the matter. All the shopping of Paris available to us, and nary a euro to spend. It's a tragedy."

Rory rolled her eyes. "We can just take pictures. And get postcards. Those are pretty cheap."

"Who's on the list today?" They had a rolling schedule of people to send postcards to, making sure to send out one once a day if possible.

Rory consulted the itinerary she kept at hand. "Um … Miss Patty today and Babette's from yesterday, since we didn't get a chance to get out because of everything that happened. Oh, Mom, we should visit Shakespeare and Company!"

"No, we shouldn't."

"Mom!"

"Rory, you've already bought enough books that we've had to ship back a package to Babette to drop off at the house."

"Just one book!"

"That's what you said when we went into Waterstones in London."

"But that was different." Rory waved her book at her mother, a copy of _Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone._ "They had all of Harry Potter in UK English there! There's some key differences between the UK and the US books, especially the first two. It was a necessity."

Lorelai rolled her eyes, more for show than anything. "Fine, _one_ book."

"Thank you." Satisfied, Rory reached for her cup of coffee. Then her eyes focused on something over Lorelai's shoulder and her jaw dropped. "Um, Mom?"

"Hmm?" Lorelai finally opened her magazine.

"How did Luke say he was sending the money again?"

"Western Union," she replied absently and considered trying to eat another croissant.

"Um."

"What is it?" Lorelai glanced up, startling at Rory's suddenly pale face. "What's wrong, Rory?"

Rory just nodded to something behind her and Lorelai turned in her chair to look at the crowd milling the sidewalk. She wondered if it was a mime. If it was, they needed to run as fast and as far as they could. Or mock it. Mock the mime or run from the mime? She wasn't really in a mocking mood. Once the wire came through, she would be in prime mocking mood once more. Right, run from the mime.

The crowd thinned a bit, and she spotted someone vaguely familiar at the other end of the block holding a map and a sheaf of paper along with a shopping bag. The man was dressed in a nice shirt and jeans, a small duffel bag slung over one shoulder. Poor lost tourist, she thought as the man squinted at the street sign and rubbed tiredly at his eyes. Something about the way he did it, about how he ran his hand through his hair and stared about him in an annoyed manner reminded her of Luke. Actually, his hair reminded her of him. And his build. And his face. And ... _oh my God_.

Rory was already out of her seat, shrieking his name as she raced down the sidewalk. Luke turned at the sound of her voice, and she threw her arms around him, hugging him as fiercely as she had as a little girl and he'd shown up to her caterpillar's funeral. It took him a moment before he hugged her back in that awkward manner of his, not used to impromptu hugs from young women. Then he looked down the sidewalk, straight into her eyes, and the intensity of his look made her drop her magazine. She wondered if somehow she was seeing things, that her worries over the money had somehow conjured a mirage of him. Granted, she figured her imaginary Luke would be wearing flannel and a blue baseball cap, but she chalked the internal error to being outside her comfort zone.

She forced herself to her feet as they walked back to her. He looked exhausted, and she realized he had to have been awake at least 24 hours. She wondered if she should hug him or shake him. She settled for gripping the back of her chair. "What are you doing here?" she blurted, knowing it probably wasn't the best welcome to give him.

"I don't know." His voice was just cross enough that any thoughts of him being some sort of hallucination vanished. "I was just about to board the plane when I found myself going to the ticket counter and exchanging my ticket to Seattle and a $400 voucher for a non-stop flight to Paris. Because, what the hell, it wasn't like I was about to go on a cruise or anything like that. I must be out of my mind because I crossed an entire ocean and almost put on the customs form that the purpose of my trip was to save you from some strange Parisian coffee-drinking cult, who stole your purse because it was their way of letting you know they wanted you to enter their secret society." Luke rested his hands on his hips, heedless of the map and bag he still carried. He glared about him in a way that was so familiar, so much like home that she moved on instinct.

She wrapped her arms around his neck, burying her face in the crook of his shoulder. She felt him stiffen with shock, then relax into the embrace. He wrapped his arms around her waist and held her like a lifeline. She could feel his heartbeat, steady and strong, against hers. It was at that moment that she realized how homesick she was. As much as she loved the traveling, the past day had been terrifying. But here he was, the biggest reminder of home, stability, and safety, exactly when she needed it the most.

"You wanted to save me from a coffee-drinking cult? That's so sweet," Lorelai murmured, marveling that despite traveling for so long, he smelled good. Had he always smelled this good? Would he think it weird if she took a discreet sniff?

"Aww, thank you for ensuring I'm not an orphan!" Rory cooed from somewhere behind her.

Lorelai pulled back, taking a moment to study him, from bloodshot eyes to the day's worth of scruff to the rumpled clothes. Luke almost seemed to be swaying on his feet, but his blue eyes on her were steady and sure and seemed to be saying something that she wasn't quite sure she was ready to acknowledge at that particular moment. "You look like Han Solo after they finally got him out of the carbonite," she said softly.

"It's good to see you too," he said thickly.

Her brain chose that moment to remind herself that they were standing on a public street and getting a number of looks, even for Paris. Reluctantly, she ended the hug and turned just in time to catch the look on Rory's face. It was a mix of shock, smugness and a pleased smirk. It helped bring Lorelai the rest of the way back to reality, noticing that she had a party of one standing before her.

"Where's Nicole?" she asked.

Luke gave a half-hearted shrug. "I assume she's still going on the cruise."

So many questions leaped to mind. Were Luke and Nicole still in a relationship? Lorelai's internal Magic 8-Ball pointed to "outlook not so good" based on the fact that he was swaying on his feet in front of her out of exhaustion and not on a cruise ship. Why had he come to Paris instead just wiring the money? _Friends don't just leave their girlfriends and fly across an ocean to hand you cash_ , the rational part of her brain said. Did he know this was one of the kindness things anyone had ever done for her? It only ranked second to Mia taking a chance on her and baby Rory, giving them a home for the very first time. Did he know how insane this was?

He gave her a tired half-smile. "Sorry. Couldn't sleep on the plane. Hate those things. Probably should find a place to grab a little sleep."

"Well, you can bunk with us." Lorelai linked arms with him, mostly in an effort to keep him from stumbling in exhaustion. She steered him toward the hostel and nodded to Rory, who hastily gathered their things and wrapped the rest of the croissants in a napkin.

"Y'know," Luke slurred, nearly sounding drunk. "I didn't want to go on the cruise. Lorelai, she wanted to do couples yoga."

"No. Really?" Lorelai tried to picture Luke doing yoga, and it was so far outside the realm of reality that she couldn't begin to imagine him in a downward-facing dog pose. The closest she could come was seeing him in yoga pants and a scowl. She fought back the laughter that bubbled up. "You'd never do yoga."

"Exactly!"

"If you did, we'd need to get you to a doctor. Or charge admission and record it for posterity."

He scowled at her.

"Oh, we could make it a two-for-one special! We could talk Taylor into it as well, maybe Kirk," she teased him.

"Lorelai," he growled.

"Where's your luggage?" Rory asked as they walked into the hostel and toward the room the girls shared. Lorelai silently thanked herself for booking a private room on this leg of the trip rather than the dormitories the hostel also offered.

"Somewhere over the Atlantic, I hope," Luke said as Lorelai unlocked the door and led him in. She pointed toward her bed, and he sank wearily onto it. "Didn't have time to take it off the plane. They said they'd send it later."

Rory put the bundle of croissants on her bed and pointed to the hall. Lorelai nodded and watched as Rory slipped out of the room.

"We should, you know, go to the bank," Luke muttered, eyes already closed as he leaned back against the wall.

"You are taking a nap," she informed him in her best mom voice. "I hear the Rip Van Winkle look is very sexy." She tapped his boots. "Off with the shoes."

Lorelai took his bags from him and sat on Rory's bed as he took off his boots, lining them neatly next to her jumble of shoes by the bed. He muttered something under his breath about having to haul those shoes around Europe before stretching out, his large frame nearly spilling out of the single bed. It reminded her of the similar bed in his apartment and wondered, not for the first time, how he could sleep in such a narrow space.

A flash of pink caught her eye from the partially opened shopping bag, and she pulled out the bright pink purse. "What's this? Are you going metrosexual on me, Luke?"

"Need a new purse, don't you?" Luke murmured, already half-asleep. "Reminded me of you."

Lorelai felt the sting of tears and hugged the purse close to her chest as he relaxed, absently nuzzling her pillow. She wondered if he was aware he was doing that "Smells like you," he murmured into the pillow.

She forced the words out around the lump in her throat, keeping it light and casual. "I would imagine so."

"Did such a stupid thing. Not sure why I'm here," Luke muttered, then he was asleep.

—

"Wow," Rory said as Lorelai joined her in the hostel's living room. She marked the place in the guidebook she was reading with her finger and flipped it closed.

"Wow doesn't quite cut it." Lorelai found herself staring at the wall that divided the common area from the sleeping quarters, from the last person she ever expected to see in Europe who was now sleeping in her bed. The entire day had such a surreal quality to it that she wondered if she was still suffering the effects of jet lag herself. "I'm still trying to figure out the logic where wiring emergency money suddenly leaped into flying across the Atlantic."

Rory opened her mouth to say something, then noticed the purse Lorelai still held. "Where'd you get that?"

"Oh." Lorelai dropped to the couch next to Rory and turned the purse over in her hands. She quirked a grin, running a finger over the flower and the sewn-in fake gems. He was right, it was something she would buy for herself. "Luke gave it to me. It was in that shopping bag he was holding. Said it reminded him of me."

Rory gave her a look so baffled it had to be a physical conduit of her own feelings. "Luke flew to Paris to give you a _purse_?"

"Well, and I assume a couple hundred euro until my debit card gets here."

Rory laughed. "Mom, this is literally the script of every Rob Reiner movie ever made and quite a few that are still in production.. This is Luke. _Our_ Luke. He left his girlfriend and flew across the ocean for you!"

"For us," Lorelai corrected.

"For _you_ ," Rory enunciated as if Lorelai was the daughter and she was the mother.

 _For me_. Lorelai stared at the purse as her brain began to play a rapid game of connect the dots. Though it was really more like Connect Four. Actually, it was Battleship, and the sinking ship was constructed out of every lie she had told herself about her friendship with Luke.

"Oh, God. Mommy needs some time to process," she groaned.

"Mommy has had seven years to process," Rory muttered.

Lorelai scowled at her. "And just what is that supposed to mean?"

Rory snagged a brochure and stuck it in the guidebook before putting it on the battered coffee table in front of them. "It means that there are things between the two of you that even I saw at 11 years old."

"Well that's because you were too damn grown-up for your age," Lorelai muttered.

"My mommy made me that way," Rory said primly.

Lorelai stuck her tongue at Rory, who immediately retaliated.

"I think it's pretty obvious, Mom. I know he hasn't said the words, but it's Luke. He doesn't do things like this unless they mean something. For him, flying across the ocean to glare at you is like skywriting his feelings."

"He was going on a cruise with Nicole."

"After you told him to," Rory pointed out.

Lorelai narrowed her eyes. Rory frowned at her. "What?"

"Rory." She faced her daughter. "I didn't send him on that cruise. I didn't ask him to come here. Everything he did, he did himself. That's something you've got to remember, honey, especially as you go to college. You are going to get so much conflicting advice. You're going to have the people you trust more than anything, and yes, go to them when you need help solving a problem. But the most important thing of all is to trust yourself and stand by the decisions that you make, because in the end, you're the one to make them. Not me, not Luke, not Sookie or Grandma and Grandpa. It's all on you, kid."

Rory's gaze cut away, and Lorelai knew she was thinking of Dean and Jess. She wrapped an arm around Rory's shoulders, pulling her close. Rory nestled against her, and Lorelai flashed back to when her baby had been very small and the answer to the world's problems could be solved with a good snuggle.

"Hey, you're going to make mistakes. We all make them. But the thing to do is own up to them," Lorelai told her.

"Like you did with Max."

"Like I did with Max." Lorelai stroked Rory's hair, trying to forget she was weeks away from sending her baby, her best friend, off to Yale. "I don't know what's going through Luke's head right now, and he has his own way of sharing his thoughts when he's ready."

Rory gave a hum of approval. "You know, you make a very decent mom."

Lorelai kissed the top of her head. "And you make a very decent daughter."

They watched the ceiling fan lazily turn, listened as people spoke in rapid French as they passed the hostel. "So what do we do?" Rory asked.

Lorelai shrugged. "For all we know, he's just dropping off cash while on his way to Barcelona for a hot date with Nina and Maria."

"Poor Pinta," Rory sighed. "No one ever remembers Pinta."

"But I was thinking we could invite him to stay for a few days, at least while we're in Paris. I know it's our trip, but …"

Rory sat up, tucking her hair behind her ear. "It'd seem ungrateful to just take the money and run? I don't mind, Mom."

"No? It is our legendary mother-daughter trip."

"Really," Rory insisted. "I mean, we'd have an extra backpack that we could load with books and other souvenirs. Hey, Luke could take stuff back to Stars Hollow for us!"

"Yes, he could!"

Rory's eyes lit up. "I could buy more books!"

"Luke's the only one who could possibly make horrible hostel coffee edible," Lorelai said thoughtfully, toes curling at the thought of having his coffee once more, even if it was a cobbled-together French version.

Rory gave her a considering look, tapping her finger to her cheek. "Now there's a perk I didn't realize." She reached for her guidebook. "You say everything happens for a reason. So Luke's here for a reason."

"The zen of Rory Gilmore," Lorelai teased, and Rory pressed her hands together and bowed before turning her attention to her guidebook.

She flipped open the book to reveal her itinerary, now liberally marked up with crossed out lines and scribbled-in notes. "I've been going over the itinerary, and even though it's summer, it should be relatively easy to get a room with two double beds at most of the hostels if, for some reason, he wanted to stay with us a bit longer. We might want to nix the dorms entirely, but I think after the London hostel, I've had my fill. Cost-wise, it shouldn't be that much to switch some of our stays to smaller B&Bs."

"I could write them off on my taxes," Lorelai said, peering at some of the circled entries over Rory's shoulder.

"Really?"

"Staying at B&Bs means research for the Dragonfly."

Rory beamed. "I like it! So, you see, Luke being here is already helping." She closed the guidebook, absently fiddling with a corner of the itinerary that stuck out of the book. "Say, Mom, do you think he wants to stay?"

"Well, we'll find out when he wakes up," Lorelai said cheerfully, giving herself permission to hope that perhaps, when he came to his senses, Luke would want to stay.


	3. All Alone in the Night

_Chapter 3: All Alone in the Night_

It was dark when Luke woke, and the first thing he realized was that his body clock was well and truly screwed. It took him a moment to orient himself, not used to hearing noises outside. Stars Hollow was so quiet, with any hint of nighttime noise leading to utter outrage from Taylor Doose. The most noise he'd heard in years had been Lorelai pelting his window with pebbles, seeking sanctuary after the fire at the Independence Inn, and she had given up her home to displaced guests.

Then it fully came back to him. He wasn't in Seattle. He wasn't on a cruise ship. He was in _Paris_ , because his chivalry had suddenly kicked into overdrive.

He sat up and tried to see what time it was before finally looking at his watch. It was still set to Eastern Daylight Time, and it took him a moment to guess it was somewhere around midnight. He'd been asleep, what 14 hours? That explained the second thing he realized upon waking, and that was to find a bathroom.

That took him into a hallway, and reluctantly he kept the door of the room ajar since he didn't have a key. Thankfully, there were signs in English, and it prevented him from making a huge mistake such as wandering into the women's side of the restroom. It didn't prevent the wince when he realized it was a gym-style setup with open showers and relatively little privacy. Luke took his time going back to the room, checking out the different parts of the hostel. There were group dorms, a communal kitchen, and a living room. A TV blaring something in French came from that area. Feeling uncomfortable as is, he quickly slipped back into Lorelai and Rory's room and waited for his eyes to adjust to the dark.

The girls were curled up together on Rory's bed, Lorelai's arm slung protectively around her daughter's waist. Guilt gnawed at him because Lorelai had given up her bed for him, and she didn't have to do that. He frowned and tried to work out the logistics of building a nest on the floor for himself and moving one of the girls to the other bed. But they were entangled in such a way that lifting Rory or Lorelai would wake them for sure. He wondered if this is how they slept when they lived in the potting shed behind the Independence Inn, with Lorelai protecting tiny Rory.

Something warm settled in the pit of his stomach, and he realized with surprise that it was happiness. For the first time since he couldn't remember when, he felt honest-to-god contentment. Here he was, who knows how many thousands of miles away from home, watching Lorelai and Rory sleep, and he was just happy. This was what he had done when he changed his flight, upended his entire freaking _life_. Luke hadn't let himself think about the implications of what he had done on the plane, in customs, or as he wandered through Paris clinging to a map, Rory's itinerary, and a hot pink purse like a security blanket. But now those ramifications were pushing at the front of his brain with the force of a migraine.

At a loss, Luke rubbed the back of his neck and slipped back out of the room. His stomach growled and he tried to remember the last time he'd eaten. God, it had been what, at least 36 hours ago? It had be before he left Stars Hollow. He hadn't eaten at the restaurant in Newark with Nicole, and his stomach refused to let him even consider the in-flight meal on the trans-Atlantic leg of the trip. Then when he'd been wandering lost through Paris, things as mundane as eating didn't seem important.

But here he was in the middle of Paris, his stomach threatening to turn itself inside out, and he wasn't even sure if the concept of a 24-hour restaurant existed in country to begin with. Then there was actually ordering the food and he doubted the Spanish he'd taken in high school would serve him here. Not that he could actually remember any of it. Lorelai and Rory had essentially sneaked him into their hostel, and he didn't feel right about taking any of the food from it. The girls probably had a candy stash hidden in their backpacks, but he wasn't that desperate.

Luke noticed that a door across from the girls' room led to a small porch dotted with several of those dainty wrought-iron tables that seemed to be a Parisian cliché. He scowled, not comfortable with Lorelai and Rory being so close to an entrance that anyone could freely access. This time, he pulled the door behind him firmly, letting the lock click into place, and pushed through the opposite door leading onto the porch.

Smoking area, he realized quickly, wrinkling his nose. But there was fresh air here, and that felt pretty nice. Not wanting to subject himself to one of the iron chairs or the slight smokers haze, he looked for another place to sit and spotted stairs. Curious, he climbed them until he found himself on the roof.

Paris spread before him in a brilliant tableau, lights twinkling everywhere as they angled toward the Eiffel Tower. There were more tables up here and a small bar, probably for hosting small parties. Hell, that's what he would do with a view like this. It struck him at that moment just how very far he'd come from home, without a plan, without fully realizing what he was doing. A normal, sane person would have just wired the money. No _he_ had to fly across the ocean and crash a long-planned mother-daughter trip because something in his gut wouldn't let him live with himself until he saw that she was OK in person. He very nearly buried his head in his hands.

Instead, Luke wandered to the chest-high wall separating one rooftop from the next. He leaned on it, resting his weight on his arms as he stared at the Eiffel Tower. Lorelai was fine. Tired, and he remembered seeing the circles under her eyes from lack of sleep and the stress in her face, but otherwise she was fine. There was no room for him here. Just the fact that he was in Paris, staring at a structure he'd only seen in books and on TV drove home that surreal fact. Granted, going on a cruise was also completely out of left field for him.

But while it had taken weeks of waffling before he got as far as he did on the cruise trip, it'd taken seconds for him to change his mind and talk his way onto that Paris flight. The thing that baffled him even further was that Nicole hadn't been surprised.

 _He'd walked back to the gate, where Nicole had been pacing in front of the small customer service counter. Before she could lay into him about how they nearly missed his flight, he informed her that he wasn't going._

 _"What do you mean you're not going?"_

 _"Look, Nicole, there's been an emergency. I've got to deal with it."_

 _"Did something happen to the diner?"_

 _"No."_

 _"Is it your sister? Your nephew?"_

 _"They're fine."_

 _Nicole studied him, staring for so long that he shifted uncomfortably. "Is it Lorelai?" she asked softly._

 _Luke looked away from her, not quite meeting her eyes. "I'm sorry."_

 _She laughed, short and bitter. "You know what? It doesn't surprise me that you're walking away from me for her. I'm just surprised it took you this long to do so." Without another word, she shouldered her carry-on, swiped her ticket, and headed for the plane without him._

"Hey." Luke felt her hand on his arm, pulling him out of his thoughts. He winced a bit, realizing she'd woken up for some reason and had gone looking for him. He wasn't used to leaving notes explaining his whereabouts.

Lorelai smiled up at him in that way that made him feel both at peace and unsettled at the same time, but in a good way. She was dressed in pajamas, a long sweater belted over it. He could see the slight glitter from the flip-flops she wore and knew they had to match the purse he bought her. Pink and glitter and bright. That was Lorelai Gilmore. "Euro for your thoughts?"

"It's a penny."

"Well, considering the exchange rate and the look on your face, I figured I'd go for broke."

"I was just thinking about Nicole," Luke said, and her voice sounded just a bit odd.

"Are you two broken up?" she asked, her voice infused with false cheer.

"Yeah. It was pretty clear. I walked away from the trip, so I walked away from the relationship. Sometimes, I wonder if we even had one to begin with." Luke glanced down at her as he said that. Lorelai didn't say anything for a moment, and he saw the corner of her mouth twitch. He suddenly remembered the day he found out that she had left Max Medina. Maybe, just maybe … He didn't stop smiling for a full day.

But Lorelai had a better poker face than he did and managed to her expression respectably sober. "You had enough of one to consider abandoning your mountain man ways. Though I figured you'd spring for the bigger bed before the whole cruise thing. I still can't figure out how you manage to sleep in it. I think a pack of clowns could jam into a tiny car better than you can fit into that single bed."

"You're the one who told me to go," he pointed out.

Lorelai stiffened, pulling away from him ever so slightly. "Don't you even try to pin this on me," she said in a cool voice that made her sound more like her mother than she would ever care to admit. "I just got finished telling Rory that she has to be accountable for her own actions, and the same thing goes for you. I didn't force you to come here. You came on your own. I know you. You have the self control of a celibate monk. You actually eat your vegetables! You didn't do anything that you didn't want to do."

He started to snark back at her, but what was the point? "You're right."

"Of course, I'm right." Lorelai flashed a smile at him again, and he couldn't help it. He smiled back, which made hers even wider. "Are you sad that you two broke up?"

Luke ran a hand through his hair and rocked back on his heels. "I think I'm just … relieved. You know? It wasn't working out. It was never gonna work out. I knew it even before you called me. Do you really see me on a multi-country cruise doing _yoga_?"

"I get it. I felt that way with Max. I kept wanting it to work, hoping it would work."

"When did you know it wouldn't work?"

When Lorelai didn't say anything, when she kept staring at the Eiffel Tower in an unusual silence that made him briefly fret about her health, Luke started to wonder. Something bubbled up in his gut that almost felt like hope as he thought back to a year earlier, to the discussion they'd had when he gifted her with the chuppah before her aborted wedding.

Maybe this trip wasn't such a bad idea after all.

"This is why we chose this one," Lorelai explained, gesturing to the view and completely changing the subject. "The waitlist for this place is insane, and we literally planned our entire trip around it. We came up and took in the view last night, me and Rory. I know we could had gone for one of the hotels my parents usually stay in but _this_ is Paris."

She suddenly turned and pressed a small wrapped bundle into his hands. "I forgot! I bring you food, weary traveler! And I tell you, that is the most amount of vegetables I've ever held in my hands at once, so you better appreciate my generosity."

"Thanks, I'm starving." Not wanting to sit at one of those doll-sized tables, Luke rested the bundle on the ledge and opened it to reveal some sort of veggie wrap, a croissant, an apple, and a bottle of water.

"Rory figured that wouldn't spoil since we weren't sure when you waking up. So we found a deli for the wrap and saved one of the croissants from this morning. I'm not sure where Rory found the apple. I think the grocer's stock boy down the street's half in love with her."

"Seems to be a thing with her."

Lorelai laughed and slapped his arm. "Ha! That's what I said!"

Part of him wanted to stuff everything in his mouth like he was a teenager again. The adult in him reached for the croissant and tore a piece from it. "You like these better or Sookie's?"

"Sookie's," Lorelai stated quite firmly, with the steadfast loyalty that had drawn him toward her after the quicksilver smiles and the verbal taunts that both infuriated and inflamed him. "She, however, would sit here and moan about how much hers were lacking, then push her way into the café's kitchen to learn how they'd do it. Then we'd even have better croissants."

Luke ate and she watched, and he wondered how much of her self control she was using up in not snatching the rest of the croissant for herself. He tore the rest of the croissant in half and handed it over. With a pleased smile, she tore a little piece off and popped it in her mouth. When he did it, it was fuel trying to sustain his overtaxed body. When she did it, it was a sensual experience from the way she closed her eyes, to the small pleased groan she gave at the taste of the pastry, to the slight licking of her lips before eating another bite.

She was going to cause him to have a stroke.

Then she boosted herself onto the ledge and helped herself to a swig from his water bottle.

Forget the stroke. She was going to give him a heart attack. "Hey, be careful!"

"I'm not going to fall," Lorelai said gaily, kicking her feet absently. "Besides, you'll catch me, won't you?"

"After scaring 20 years off my life, sure." Luke forced himself to focus on the veggie wrap and not on the inherent dangers of sitting on a rooftop ledge.

Lorelai tore off another piece of croissant. "This is the farthest you've ever been away from home, hasn't it?"

"Yeah." The furthest he'd been away from Stars Hollow before this insane trip was family camping trips to Maine before his father died. He only had his passport because the cruise ship passed through international waters. "Same for you?"

"Yeah, it is. My parents take these trips all the time, but I wasn't interested when I was a teen. Every day they were in Europe was another day of freedom for me. Chris and I had plans to do it ourselves, but then I had Rory, and going to Europe was no longer an option. We finally began joking around and here we are with our giant itinerary and our amazing Parisian view from a hostel and our croissants. I wanted to be here on my own terms, and it's the best thing ever."

"Kinda like giving the middle finger to your upbringing."

"Exactly!" Pleased, Lorelai popped the last bite of the croissant in her mouth. She watched him with an unusually pensive expression, and Luke could see all the questions just lingering on the tip of the tongue, waiting for them to spill out. Suddenly, he wasn't hungry anymore. He stared at the half-eaten wrap and slowly placed it back on the napkin next to the apple.

"You miss home, don't you?" Lorelai asked.

"I missed it the moment the plane took off from Hartford," he admitted. "I also miss my stomach, which I musta left somewhere on the ground back in Connecticut."

"Like Wile E. Coyote, it'll catch up eventually. Or fall off a cliff. Or both. Just take my advice, don't eat the escargot."

Luke chuckled and slowly wrapped the food back in the napkin, leaving the water bottle out. He drummed his fingers on the ledge and decided to do the mature thing. "Look, Lorelai-"

Her legs stopped swaying, and he could sense the fight brewing before the first retort came out of her mouth. "No. No, just stop it."

He scowled. "You don't even know what I'm going to say."

"Yes, I do!" Lorelai hopped off the wall and poked him in the stomach. "Hello, I have known you for seven years, pal. You're going to profusely apologize for barging in on me and Rory, on our mother-daughter trip, then kick yourself for doing it in the first place before skulking off on the first flight you can find back to the U.S. Am I somewhere in the ballpark?"

Luke refused to look her in the eyes.

She grabbed his arm before he could turn away, not letting go until he acknowledged her. "Do you know what this means to me?"

He gestured with his free arm. "It means you should be pissed I just barged in like this. I'm no better than your parents."

Lorelai stepped into him, standing so close he could smell the soap she used in the shower earlier in the day. It was a different scent from the one she normally used and it seemed slightly off, not quite Lorelai Gilmore. " _You_ are the farthest thing from Emily and Richard Gilmore on this planet. In this galaxy. In this universe! They would walk in here, take over this trip completely, force me and Rory to go to their glitzy hotels and never leave our side _ever_. They would come because they want to control me. You came because you _care_ for me, for Rory. Do you seriously think I don't see that?"

Luke yanked his away from her, stomping toward the cluster of tables before spinning around and throwing out his arms. "What do you want me to say? Something about you completely drives me to do things I would never consider doing. Like dropping $100K on a vacant building or go on a cruise or flying to Paris because I picked up the phone and you were crying."

He was prepared for her to yell at him. His throat burned to yell back, because at least it would be an outlet for the pain that was settling in the middle of his chest. But instead, she hugged herself and those blue eyes, shit, those blue eyes filled with tears.

 _Oh damn. Damn it all to hell._

"Oh God, no, no, I didn't mean to make you cry." Luke started toward her, but she stepped away, circling him as he tried to get her to stand still for just a moment.

"Do you know this was the sweetest thing anyone has ever done for me," Lorelai managed.

"Says the person who had a guy once fill the Independence Inn with a thousand daisies for her."

"But he wouldn't fly across the world for me because I'm stranded," she retorted. "Do you realize how many romantic movie cliches you just lived up to?"

The anger drained from Luke, replaced by something akin to panic. He kneaded his temples. "Aw, geez."

"It's _When Harry Met Sally_ or _Sleepless in Seattle_ or _Sabrina_ or _Kate and Leopold._ Where one of them realizes they love the other one and go racing across the city or world or time to stop them from being with the wrong person or just from walking away. I'm leaning more toward _When Harry Met Sally_ , but-" She cut herself off.

Luke closed his eyes, silently counted to ten. Ignoring his frantic heart, he mentally created a list of things he needed to do. This was something he was good at. There was a problem, and if he followed the logical sequence, he could fix it. Really, solving this mess would only take a few steps. "Look, we're going to the bank tomorrow, we'll get you whatever money you need until your cards arrive. Then I'm going home so we can both deal with the fact that I just made a fool of myself."

"No, you're not," Lorelai shot back.

He winged an eyebrow. "How're you going to stop me?"

Her chin lifted. "When's your return flight?"

OK, that had been out of the blue. "What?"

"What's the date on your return ticket?"

Because he honestly had no clue, hadn't even paid attention when he purchased the flight to begin with, Luke yanked out his wallet and pulled out the battered itinerary from the airline. "Look, it's …" his voice died away when he looked at the words printed on the crumpled paper.

"Did you book a one-way ticket or something?" Lorelai reached over and nimbly plucked it out of his fingers, then gaped at it. "You really did! You bought a one-way ticket from Newark to Charles de Gaulle Airport. Wow." She gave him an admiring look. "$400 off too? How did you get so lucky? How did they even let you in the country? You know how customs are these days."

"I don't know, I don't remember." Luke grabbed the water bottle from the ledge, took a deep swig, and tried to remember customs. Then he groaned, remembering his exhausted babbling to the customs agent that sounded perilously close to being something Lorelai would do. He really had been around her too much.

"What?"

"Rory's itinerary," he said simply, unwilling to explain what exactly he had told the customs agent. "I sort of waved it around and talked about the diner, and they seemed to be satisfied with that.

Lorelai nodded sagely. "That thing has saved our asses more than once."

They shared a small smile of pride.

"Rory and I have taken a vote, and we've decided to keep you on the island."

He frowned, knowing it was some sort of pop culture reference he didn't get. "What does that even mean?"

"It means we want you to come with us. Look, I know it won't be for the entire time. You've got to go back and make sure we're kept in coffee, Burger Boy. But you can at least stay with us a few days, maybe even a week or two." Lorelai gave him a small smile. "Please?"

Luke wasn't sure what to say. He didn't think he _could_ say anything. Whatever denial he'd been prepared to issue died unspoken, strangled by pure emotion. His entire life, he'd been the one to plea for someone to stay with him. _Don't die, Mom. Dad, you can't leave me. Rachel, give life in Stars Hollow another chance. Don't take Jess to New York City, Liz_. Every single person he loved had walked away, either by choice or a cruel twist of fate. Even Nicole hadn't truly wanted him on the cruise in the end, not even attempting to change his mind.

But Lorelai Gilmore _wanted_ him to be with her, with Rory, not knowing how that request simply undid him. He stared at the stones paving the rooftop, hoping she couldn't see that he was struggling not to give into the emotion that swelled in his throat. He didn't know how to handle the fact that someone actually wanted him enough to stick around.

"Fine." His voice didn't sound like his own. Oddly, it sounded like when Rory made her graduation speech at Chilton just a couple weeks earlier. "I'll stay."

"Good!" Luke glanced up in time to see Lorelai's smile, and it was one of the most beautiful things he'd ever seen. It fit - her standing on a Parisian rooftop, the Eiffel Tower in the background as she beamed at him like he'd presented her with a giant ice cream sundae and a unlimited supply of coffee.

God, if he wasn't careful, this _would_ turn into one of those crazy romantic movies she was addicted to.

"Let's get some sleep! I'm pretty sure Rory has rewritten half the itinerary by now, and we're going to need all the mental stamina we can get to match wits with her." Lorelai gave him a friendly punch in the arm and strode toward the stairs.

"Lorelai," Luke called after her, waiting until she turned back to give him her attention.

"What?" she asked.

"I don't have the self control of a celibate monk." He walked back to the ledge to finish his meal, suddenly ravenous. A corner of his mouth lifted as he heard her shocked gasp, knowing that a gauntlet had been tossed.

* * *

 **Editor's note:** For what it's worth, Luke, yes there are 24-hour restaurants in Paris.


	4. Learning Curve

**Author's note:** Thank you all for such a warm reception for this story, and really a warm welcome to writing for this fandom. It's a new one for me, but these two have caught my heart and haven't seemed to let go yet!

* * *

 _Chapter 4: Learning Curve_

Any chance for sleep had been shattered after _that_ statement. It was the crème de la crème on a day so unusual, so surreal that Bill Murray would be asking her for pointers in case he wanted to head a Groundhog Day sequel.

It'd taken 10 minutes of a furious, whispered argument before Luke agreed to not sleep on the floor, mainly because the room was so small that the probability of her and Rory accidentally stepping on him was nearly 100%. He'd gone back to her bed, and she lay next to Rory and tried her very best to sleep for the rest of the night. Every time she closed her eyes, all she could see was those blue eyes on her as he told her he lacked the self control of a celibate monk, the intensity of his gaze so strong that had she been at home, certain items in her nightstand would be getting quite a bit of use.

But Lorelai wasn't at home, and her daughter was snoozing barely a foot away, so she couldn't even allow herself to _think_ about anything having to do with sex or Luke or Luke and sex or being naked or being naked with Luke or chocolate sauce … ok, she could think of chocolate sauce. And ice cream. And pie. And coffee. Great, now she was hungry, and the croissants were gone. She wasn't desperate enough to see if Luke had managed to finish his meal after all. She would risk ruining her anti-vegetable rep.

So she stared at the ceiling and tried thinking of everything unappealing in her life. Somewhere between Taylor dressed in a Rainbow Brite outfit and Kirk becoming an opera singer, Lorelai risked glancing across the room to see if Luke was asleep, only to find his eyes open and staring at the ceiling as well. He glanced across the room at her, and she quickly looked away, fixing her eyes back on the ceiling tiles.

She closed her eyes and sighed. Well, great. Now she was going to have to start all over.

—-

"Ground rules," Lorelai muttered to herself as she ponder face-planting into the absurdly small cup of coffee she held. Someone really needed to teach Europeans about proper coffee sizes. Nothing smaller than a vat would do. "Definitely need ground rules."

"For what?" Rory asked absently, once again absorbed in the adventures of Harry Potter. A small notebook sat on the table in front of her, where she jotted down notes on the differences between the book she held and the one she owned back at home.

Mainly for having sexual feelings for one of your best friends while your daughter was in the same room, but as close as she and Rory were, Lorelai wasn't about to tell her _that_. She waved it away. "Sharing really small spaces between a guy and two girls. I think Luke nearly passed out when he saw the box of pantyliners and tampons at the top of my toiletry bag this morning."

"Luke has a sister and had girlfriends. I think he's aware periods are a thing."

"Yes, but probably not literally shoved in his face." As what happened when he'd rolled over and opened his eyes to see that toiletry bag with feminine products and makeup spilled everywhere just a few inches from his face. Lorelai, who'd been hunting for her eyeliner, would never forget that priceless moment when Luke's face turned an interesting shade of purple, had yelped "jeez," and rolled off the narrow bed in an attempt to look away. Sadly, Rory had missed the entire thing because she'd been in the shower.

"We'll just keep our bags closed," Rory said practically. "I learned how to contain my things to a limited space. One must do that to successfully live with Paris for a summer."

Lorelai made some sort of sound of vague agreement and watched as people passed outside with colorful umbrellas, jockeying for sidewalk position as they handed their extra burdens. She and Rory were now on day 3 of sitting at the same cafe near the hostel, which turned out to be part of a British chain that had expanded into France. It was seeing quite a bit of Gilmore money between the coffee and bakery trips, plus it'd been where they found the veggie wrap the previous afternoon. This time, with a light rain pattering outside, they migrated inside and took up residence in a corner table, making sure just to order enough to keep them from getting thrown out.

"How long does it take to hit up an ATM?" Lorelai wondered.

"Hope it didn't eat his card," Rory replied absently. She peered over the edge of her book. "He did place a travel note on it, right?"

"I'm sure he did. This is Luke, and he was the one who told us to do it to our cards to begin with. He's always super careful about …" Her brow furrowed. "What happens to an ATM card if you use it in France when you're supposed to be on a cruise on the other side of the world?"

—

It gets eaten by the ATM.

Lorelai walked in the lobby of the HSBC, eyebrows arching at a tiny crowd clustered around the ATM as the English-speaking teller fished through the machine for the Bank of America debit card it had consumed when the machine realized that the owner of said card wasn't supposed to be in France. Luke stood back a bit from the crowd, hands shoved in his pocket as he glared at his new mortal nemesis.

"So. ATM craved a nummy snack, huh?" Lorelai patted his arm comfortingly.

"This is not the way I wanted to learn the fraud protection on the thing worked," Luke groused.

"I didn't think they fished out cards like this."

He shrugged. "Well, I showed them my passport and they let me call the bank back in the states on their phone. Wouldn't want to imagine the cellphone bill otherwise. It's gonna be high enough as is." Luke gave Lorelai a knowing look.

Lorelai knew it was her fault and gave him a somewhat apologetic smile. "Sorry … not sorry. So, it should work after this?"

"Yeah, the bank sorted it out. They needed to restock the machine anyhow, so it worked out."

"Speaking of that, any word on your luggage?"

"It should get here in a few hours." Luke glanced about, uneasy at the attention they were drawing. "Look, you two go out, do some stuff. This leg of the trip only lasts another couple days, right?"

"Have you looked at the weather outside? I don't know about you, but I prefer to see Paris when I'm not worried about having to book passage on an ark. Do you have any extra clothes with you?" She plucked at the shirt he wore, now in its third day of use and a little worse for wear.

"Just some emergency things. Extra T-shirt, underwear, socks. I changed into those this morning. Few toiletries, my camera."

Lorelai pressed a hand to her chest. "You mean the answer to life's biggest mystery was in my hands last night, and I totally didn't find the answer to it?"

"What's that?"

Her smile was wicked, bordering on the edge of slightly reckless. "Boxers or briefs?"

Before he could groan, the teller approached them and handed over Luke's debit card. "Here you go, our apologies for the inconvenience."

"Nah, it's my fault. Wasn't thinking." Luke profusely thanked the teller, and Lorelai added in hers as well. When the teller managed to make her escape, they joined the end of the queue for the ATM, letting the people who had to wait on them go first. Then Luke took out 500 Euro and handed Lorelai 400 of it.

"This is a lot of money, I can't take all of it," she hissed at him.

"What if your card's not in Avignon? Put that money away, don't let people see it. Geez, Lorelai." Luke did his best to cover the cash before Lorelai could wave it about everywhere.

"It'll be there! You can't just give all of this to me!"

"Wasn't that the whole point of this exercise?"

They argued their way to a 300/200 split, and she insisted on writing an IOU on the back of the ATM receipt before dragging him back out and to the small café that had become their Parisian home base.

"What's this?" Luke eyed the sign suspiciously, even though he'd been right outside it the day before. Granted, his jet lag had been to the point where Lorelai was surprised he remembered her name, much less where he was at.

"Pret a Manger, or however you say it. I can't begin to pronounce it right. Our home away from home since we got here." She grinned at his scowl. "What?"

"How can you eat at this place? Do you have any idea what it serves? You can't even say the name!"

"I can't say the name of most of the things in this country. I know what it serves, Luke. And so do you. Where do you think Rory and I got that veggie wrap you ate last night?"

She saw the flash of recognition in his eyes, and he had the grace to look a bit sheepish. Luke followed her in to see fresh-basked pastries along the back wall and a cooler on the side filled with an array of sandwiches, soups, juices, and healthy sides to go along with everything. Lorelai poked through the cooler, suddenly ravenous for more than a croissant.

"This actually meets your seal of approval. Everything is made on site and the leftovers are given to the homeless at the end of the day. Look, there's green stuff in all this. I couldn't even avoid the spinach."

"It's good for you." Luke selected a sandwich with avocado and chicken and a bowl of tomato soup to go with it.

Lorelai wrinkled her nose at the sandwich. "You _eat_ avocado?"

"What, you like avocado when it's in guacamole."

"Yes, as guacamole and served with a huge pile of tortilla chips, sour cream, and cheese. Not as avocado where it's all slimey and gross."

Luke shook his head. "It's not slimey and gross when you eat it before it goes overripe."

Lorelai huffed and grabbed a ham and cheese wrap. They ordered more croissants, coffee, and tea, and walked back to Rory, who had added chocolate croissants to their food supply while they were in the bank.

"So, what's the plan?" Lorelai asked as she slid into the booth next to Rory, who had abandoned Harry Potter and had her guidebook and itinerary out, more notes scribbled over it.

"Well, we need to integrate Luke into the trip."

"Integrate me?" Luke took the chair across from the bench seat and swapped cups so Lorelai had coffee and he had tea.

"When we came up with this trip, we developed a system," Lorelai explained.

"It's a very logical system." Rory pushed a piece of paper over to Luke. "For every place we stay, Mom and I each pick an activity for us to do together. Then we have one day where we completely go our separate ways. We can do whatever we want as long as we meet at an assigned place at a specific time and tell each other what we did over supper. That way, we can get some space. So, you need to decide on a group activity for all of us, and on Thursday, we'll all go our separate ways and do something on our own."

"Which, coincidentally, is how Rory has already managed to ship half the British Library back to Stars Hollow."

"I'm disowning you," Rory cooly informed her. Lorelai stuck her tongue out at her. "So, here's what we've picked for us to do together in Paris so far." She tapped the paper, which held some of the usual tourist destinations: the Eiffel Tower, the Notre Dame, the Catacombs and the Bastille. "Versailles is the furthest out, so that'll take the better part of the day, so we may have to rule that out. "

Rory handed the guidebook across the table, and Luke absently flipped through it. He glanced at the paper, back at the book, then at the paper again. "All right. How about this?" He pointed to something that was vaguely familiar-looking on the first page he stopped on. "That doesn't seem to be on your list."

"You just pointed at the book!" Lorelai objected. "We only do guidebook roulette if we're really stuck!"

"You need to _read_ it. Do you seriously want to go see," Rory angled the book toward her, "the Palais Galliera?"

He shrugged. "Sure, sounds fine."

"Luke," Lorelai sighed.

Luke stared at their exasperated expressions. "What?"

"It's a _fashion_ museum," Rory explained.

He paled ever so slightly. "What!"

Rory took the guidebook back from him to read aloud. "The Musée de la Mode de la Ville de Paris, otherwise known as the Palais Galliera, is dedicated to French fashion history. There's everything in there from costumes to underwear. Lots and lots of women's underwear through the centuries."

"Aw, geez."

"So, if you really want to go there …" Rory picked up her pen and hovered it over the itinerary, her eyebrows lifting ever so slightly.

Luke beckoned the guidebook back and Rory handed it over with a smug smile as Lorelai hid her laugh in her swallow of coffee. He read through it slower, turning pages until something caught his eye. He scanned the paragraph and nodded. He handed the guidebook back to Rory, tapping the middle entry on the page. "There."

"Is this your final answer?" Lorelai quipped.

Luke knew it was another pop culture reference lost on him and merely tapped the book again. "Yes."

Rory silently read the guidebook entry to herself. She arched an eyebrow and nodded with approval. "Good choice! Mom, you get final approval."

"I thought you said this was a democracy?"

"It's one where the mommy is in charge," Rory informed Luke and handed the guidebook to Lorelai.

She read through it, pleased and a touch excited by what he'd chosen. "I like it! This looks great!"

"All right." Rory wrote _Musée de la Magie_ on the itinerary with a pen, sealing their commitment to visit.

—

Luke's suitcase was waiting for them by the time they got back to the hostel. It was large, plain, sturdy, proper and not at all suited for a backpacking trip, and even he conceded that he needed something better if he was going to follow Lorelai and Rory all over part of Europe.

"I don't want to drag this thing all over the place," he decided as Lorelai opened it. "What are you doing?"

"Making sure you're properly outfitted," she replied and began to shift through his clothes.

Luke shoved his hands in his pockets. "I imagine what I'd wear on this trip is the same as the cruise."

Lorelai laughed. "Aww, Rory, do you see this?"

"What, Mom?"

"It's the face of pure innocence before we utterly destroy it."

"Again? It's the third time this month."

Lorelai decided she was only the tiniest bit jealous to see that most of the items in the suitcase were the clothes she had purchased for Luke a couple years earlier. She admired herself for her tastes and was not-so-secretly glad that Nicole would no longer be the benefit of seeing Luke in tailored trousers and nice dress shirts. She kept shifting clothes around, ignoring Luke's protests to let him take care of it himself. She waved him off and he stood awkwardly near the bed, scowling at her as she went through everything.

"Jeans, T-shirts, ah there's the flannel," Lorelai said approvingly. She snagged out a shirt and a T-shirt and thrust it in his general direction. "Here, go take a shower." She tossed his jeans at him and he barely managed to keep them from landing on top of his head. "I'll make a list of what you need, which thankfully isn't plenty. Don't you own a pair of shorts?"

"One, and they're not here."

"You need shorts."

"I'm perfectly fine in jeans."

"Tromping around Europe? In July? Lorelai raised an eyebrow.

"I'm fine," Luke bit out. "I need the toiletry kit out of the duffel."

Rory fished it out and handed it over. She pulled out his new camera at the same time. "Oh, wow! This is cool! It's a DSLR, isn't it? Can I try it out?"

"Sure," Luke replied, his tone far more kindlier than the one he used with Lorelai.

"He'll listen to her, not to me," Lorelai muttered.

"I heard that."

Lorelai frowned at the clothes in her lap. "Where's your baseball cap?"

"I didn't bring one."

Lorelai and Rory snapped their heads up, gaping at him in shock. "Who are you, and what have you done with Luke Danes," Lorelai demanded.

"What?"

"How do you not have a baseball cap?" Lorelai managed. "It's like Indiana Jones without his bullwhip!"

"Arthur without Excalibur," Rory added. "Robin Hood without his bow."

"Luke Skywalker without his light saber!"

" _Geez_ ," Luke all but swore. "Look, it just didn't seem appropriate, OK?"

"How," Lorelai asked, "could it not seem ..." Her voice trailed off as she remembered his preferred cap. The only cap he'd worn since she'd given it to him as a gesture of thanks for helping them out when her father had been in the hospital. He'd even worn it through their fight the previous summer, and that had been the one thing telling her he hadn't given up on their friendship after all. It said something, that he didn't bring the baseball cap she'd given him on his trip with Nicole. She wiggled her toes and gave him a smile so bright that she felt the shock reverberate from him.

"We'll get you another," she told him, and he simply nodded in response.

She'd reached the bottom of the bag by then, where various colored and white rolls of clothing remained. She plucked out a pair of socks and handed them over. "There you go."

Luke sighed at her. She blinked. "What?"

"I need …" His voice trailed off, and his cheeks went flush. Luke glanced a bit nervously at Rory. "I um need … those." He made an absent gesture to the bag.

"These?" Lorelai's fingers rested on one of the colored rolls.

"Yeah. Yeah, just hand me that one."

It was a blue roll. It was in her hand before she realized what it _was_ and she nearly dropped it. Instead, she all but shoved it at him and he buried it among the clothing pile in his arms. "I'm just going to go …," he stuttered.

"Right, you just go …"

"OK." He turned around and promptly walked into the door.

"Luke!" Lorelai and Rory sprang to their feet as he shook his head and waved them off.

"I'm fine, I'm fine. Just … right." He made a more graceful exit after that.

"That was awkward," Rory stated the obvious. She glanced at the piles of clothes on the floor. "Will that all go in a backpack?"

"It's not that much actually." Lorelai knelt to scoop everything back into the suitcase. When Rory wasn't looking, she quickly pulled out another colored roll and unrolled it just enough to answer one of life's greatest mysteries.

Boxer briefs.

She efficiently rolled the briefs back up and dumped the dress clothes on top of them.

—

Luke felt like himself again for the most part after the shower, after he tried not to think about the communal aspect of it too much or that Lorelai now knew exactly what sort of underwear he wore. Not that he particularly minded other than for the fact Rory had been in the room. He'd seen the way the color rose on her cheeks, and he knew if she hadn't done a closer inspection after he left that she wouldn't be the Lorelai he knew. He wondered if she was imagining them on him. Before he could enjoy _that_ imagery too much, loud voices reminded him of the communal aspect of the showers again and that was far more effective than a cold shower.

He no longer felt he'd spent a week on an airplane by the time he carried the little bundle of laundry back to the girls' room and drew up short to find it empty. Surely he hadn't been in the shower that long. 20 minutes, tops? That included dressing and undressing. Not only was their luggage gone, but so was his. He started to wonder if he'd just walked into someone else's room when Rory's head popped out of a room two doors down.

"Hey, Luke! One of the bigger rooms opened up, and we got it for the rest of the Paris part of the trip. Mom says that way you don't have to have a guilt trip over taking up one of our beds."

She opened the door wider to reveal a slightly larger room with two sets of bunk beds. Rory's gear was already on the top bunk of one and Lorelai was laying on the top bunk of the other, absently kicking her feet.

"We couldn't decide which one of us would take the bottom bunk, then we realized that neither of us would. Unless you have a thing for the top bunk," Lorelai informed him.

"No, I'm fine with the bottom." Luke glanced from bed to bed and it felt less odd to sleep under Lorelai's bunk. He moved his duffel bag to that bed, and almost before he could blink, the remaining bed was filled with an odd assortment of whatever the girls had pulled out of their backpacks plus his own suitcase. The Gilmores, he realized, had the uncanny ability to take over a room fast.

A quick query at the hostel's front desk later and they were on their way to Carrefour for supplies. It was far enough away that they had to acquire subway passes and joined the crowd of commuters. Luke wasn't a stranger to the subway, having taken it in New York City to visit Jess and Liz. It wasn't his favorite means of travel, but being crammed into a narrow tube underground for short periods of time was far better than spending an extended period of time on a narrow tube in the air. From there, they made their way to the department store."

"It's like French Wal-Mart," Luke observed as he gazed down one of the aisles, then realized he was talking to thin air. Both Rory and Lorelai had disappeared, and he just sighed and shook his head. He found Lorelai three aisles down, arms loaded with candy and snacks.

"What is with the junk food?"

"Necessary supplies!"

"You're eating out every meal as is because of the trip. Do you want to rot your insides even further?"

"I eat at your place almost every day," she pointed out.

"Yeah, but then I can at least control the crap that's being fed to you," Luke muttered. When he wasn't around, fruits and vegetables were invisible to the Gilmore eye and palate. Lorelai knew better than to throw nothing more than a token argument with him about whatever healthy foods he managed to sneak into her diet. Ignoring the oncoming gluttony storm, he glanced down another aisle, snagged a shopping basket from a display, then headed down it.

"What are you doing?" Lorelai asked, following him with her armload of junk food. She dumped her haul in another basket and picked it up.

"You said you wanted coffee." Luke gestured to the display of electric coffee makers and the items next to it to make coffee in alternate ways. He grabbed several items, tucking them in the basket. "This is the stuff I need to make your coffee."

Lorelai poked at a narrow box. "Is this a coffee grinder?"

"Yeah, a handheld one."

"Interesting." She picked up the grinder and turned it over in her hands until she found the English instructions. "You have a coffee grinder in the diner?

"Yeah, I grind the coffee fresh every day."

She gaped at him. "Seriously? I've never seen a coffee grinder in the diner."

"Because it's in the kitchen where you're not allowed."

"I'm finally learning the secret behind your coffee! What's this?" She tapped the glass pitcher with an odd lid in the basket.

"French press. We don't exactly have the room for a full-sized coffee maker. You take the ground coffee, add hot water and after a few minutes, depress the plunger. It traps the grounds in the bottom and you pour out the remaining coffee."

"Huh. That would have been useful when I lived in the potting shed with Rory. And this?" Lorelai put the grinder back in the basket and pulled out a piece of white plastic with two thick coils of metal attached to it.

"Immersion heater for when we don't have access to a kettle." Luke selected three travel mugs, then kept working his way through the aisles. There was a brief discussion over backpacks, and he vetoed the neon orange one that Lorelai insisted would go well with his plaid. She held his basket while he tried on several before settling on a sensible blue one that could bear a good bit of weight. They crossed over to the grocery section of the store, where he grabbed Ziploc bags to store everything and a couple boxes of tea for himself. He perused the coffee selection and grabbed a bag of dark roast and another of light roast whole beans, then attempted to wave Lorelai off once they reached the spices.

"Why don't you go meet up with Rory?" Luke suggested.

Lorelai hefted her basket. A few more snacks had found their way into it as they shopped, and maybe an adorable scarf or two. "I'm good. What else do you need?"

"Lorelai, you should really go meet up with Rory."

His suspicious behavior made her own spidey sense tingle. "No, I think I should stay right here. Afraid I'm going to discover the secret behind your coffee?"

"Yes," he said shortly. "Now, go."

She stood her grown. "I want to see what makes your coffee yours."

His eyes narrowed. "Fine. I won't make you coffee."

"Oh," she purred, "you'll make me coffee."

His scowl deepened, and he leaned in toward her. She could smell the toothpaste on his breath from his shower, and her heartbeat kicked up ever so slightly. "I will make you tea. Nothing but tea. Green tea."

"You wouldn't."

"Watch me."

"OK, Mom!" Rory ran down the aisle and grabbed her arm. "Let's not poke the bear. I want coffee."

"But I was about to learn his secret!" Lorelai protested as Rory dragged her off.

"No, you weren't," Luke said after them.

Lorelai scowled as Rory wrangled her to the end of the aisle. "I hate you."

Then he did the unexpected. He smiled back, annoyance replaced with humor, and damn it if her heart didn't stutter. "No, you don't."

Once they disappeared around the corner, Luke quickly grabbed small bottles of nutmeg and cinnamon and buried them in the bottom of the basket.

He took the break from the girls to swing by the pharmacy, mentally checking off what he had in his toiletry kit against what he needed. There were things Nicole had told him the cruise line would provide, so he needed more shampoo, conditioner, and body wash. He poked through the bottles before finding something that smelled vaguely close to what he had at home and added them to the basket. He wandered into the next aisle, and he drew up short before one of the displays.

Condoms.

Luke hadn't brought any with him, because Nicole had an IUD and he wasn't quite sure what direction their trip would take regarding intimacy. He figured if things had headed in that direction that he could purchase them on the ship.

Now he stared at them, wonder if … maybe if … he shook it off and quickly hurried past the display. No matter how their conversation ended the previous night, no matter how much he wanted it, it was unspeakably selfish to even consider sex with Lorelai. Not with Rory around. If it was going to happen, it would be when they were back in Stars Hollow and had a proper talk about everything. That was that.

He reached the end of the aisle, glanced over his shoulder. With a sigh, he walked back, grabbed a box of condoms, and hid it in the bottom of the basket along with the spices.

A few aisles away, Lorelai left Rory contemplating candy choices, explaining that she needed to stock up more of their toiletries. It wasn't entirely a lie. She poked through travel-sized bottles of shampoo and conditioner, picking out ones she couldn't find at home that smelled amazing. One strawberry and papaya scent was appealing enough to where she got the full bottle. She turned down the next aisle to pick up more tampons, noticing the display of condoms out of the corner of her eye.

She walked past them, slowed, then glanced over her shoulder. No sex feelings. _No sex feelings_ , she repeated like a mantra. But while her body was in the middle of a Parisian department store, her mind was back on the hostel rooftop, her best friend one step away from undressing her with his eyes as he informed her that her preconceived notions about his self control didn't live up to reality.

She had only seen Luke around two women, really. Nicole and Rachel. He showed little outward sign of being involved with either of them and knew just from their past conversations that he did his best to keep control on everything. It was a product, she surmised, of too many years of being jerked around by Rachel's comings and goings. Lorelai knew what that felt like. She had Christopher, after all.

Lorelai wondered what would happen if Luke's self control shattered?

She wondered if she could be the one to finally do it.

 _I always wanted to be._

She quickly walked back to the display, grabbed a box of condoms, and shoved it in the bottom of her basket before racing to the checkout, determined to get everything bagged and out of sight before Luke and Rory could see her purchases.


	5. The Paragon of Animals

**Author's note:** The attractions listed in this chapter are cobbled together based off current information available and doesn't necessarily reflect what they were like in the summer of 2003. Though writing Rory utilizing a paper map is officially weird now. Thank goodness for a smartphone and Google Maps. There's a small nod in here to lorelaidanesfan after a conversation we had about a missed opportunity in chapter 4.

* * *

 _Chapter 5: The Paragon of Animals_

The next day passed in a whirl of activity, going to all the tourist destinations except the Eiffel Tower, which the girls wanted to save for sunset. They toured the Notre Dame, walked through the Louvre and passed beneath the Arc de Triomphe. They took so many pictures with the camera that they had to duck into a tourist ship and buy more memory cards for Luke's camera and film for the traditional one Lorelai had brought with her. They fretted over the security of the cards before buying a case for them that was guaranteed to protect them from the X-ray machine at the airport.

Whenever they could, Lorelai and Rory ducked into a kitschy shop, emerging with some item for a Stars Hollow resident or a postcard. It was Sookie's day on the postcard chain, so Lorelai scribbled off a message to her and Rory did one for Lane, who had the slot for the previous day.

"You should do one," Rory told Luke as Lorelai crammed as much writing onto her card as possible.

He shrugged. "I really don't have anyone to send a card to." He didn't exactly want to send a postcard out to Jimmy Mariano's place, and his closest friends consisted of the two girls standing with him and … that was about it.

"I bet Kirk would like a postcard," Lorelai said absently.

"He's up tomorrow," Rory pointed out.

"I mean from Luke."

"Aww," Rory gushed. "He would cherish it always."

Luke frowned. "I'm not writing to Kirk."

"You could send one to Taylor," Lorelai said, her voice full of laughter as he glared at her.

"Need I remind you that the rest of the world thinks I'm on a cruise ship in the middle of nowhere?"

"Oh come on, just one postcard," Rory pleaded and pulled a pretty one out of her stack that featured an antique carousel. "Look, this is one of the ones at the Musée des Arts Forains. There's 14 antique carousels there."

"Oh, I want to go ride a carousel," Lorelai said wistfully, looking over Rory's shoulder. "Let's go, Rory."

Rory pulled out the map and spread it out over the table, consulting the legend and triangulating their current position and the museum that held the wealth of carousels. She then consulted a pocket-sized timetable for the Paris Metro. "It looks like it's about 30 minutes on the subway. We'll be going past the Musée de la Magie though."

"It's OK, we can skip it," Luke said, but Rory leveled a glare at him.

"We are going because you have a say in this. Got it?"

"When did she become this forceful?" Luke whispered to Lorelai, who shrugged.

"I think it's dealing with Paris for the past three years," she whispered back.

"I can hear you two talking about me." Rory handed Luke the postcard. "Here, send this to someone. I don't want to see it lurking in your bag, mister. I know where you sleep."

Rory turned back to her map and Lorelai chuckled. "Don't look at me," she insisted at Luke's raised eyebrows, holding her hands up. "I'm neutral. Totally Switzerland, complete with the chocolate."

With a sigh, Luke flipped the postcard over. He'd cut off his own tongue before admitting he hadn't written a postcard before. He wondered where he had landed on the Gilmore postcard chain. He hadn't gotten any from them before he left. "Fine. Do you have a pen?"

Lorelai blinked. "How could you not have a pen?"

Luke rolled his eyes. "Despite what you think, diner owners do not wave a magic wand and make pens appear out of thin air."

"Here," Rory said kindly and nudged Lorelai, who stuck her tongue out at her.

There was only one other person Luke could think to write, and he rapped the pen against the table for a moment trying to think of something to say.

 _Hey, Liz -_

 _So, I'm visiting Paris for a few days. Rory says this is one of 14 antique carousels that's in this museum area about 30 minutes from the Arc de Triomphe. I thought you might like it._

He was at a loss of what else to say. Liz didn't know much about Nicole and he hadn't told her about the cruise. There wasn't really anything else to say. He signed it and scribbled her last-known address on the card. Maybe it would actually get to her. He got a stamp from Rory and dropped it in the mailbox along with the cards for Sookie and Lane.

—-

The Musée de la Magie was in a tiny building with a red storefront that was wedged between a clothing store and an art shop. Steep stairs took them from street level down to the museum proper. Stone arches framed the magical artifacts on display, and they clustered together one they descended the stairs and paid the entrance fee.

"This is the cellar of the Marquis de Sade's house," Rory said reverently as her eyes adjusted to dim view. "Sadism comes from his name. He was really into combining philosophy with pornography. He was really explicit in his sexual fantasies."

"And you've read how much of it?" Luke asked warily.

"None actually. Really not my type of reading and the teachers at Chilton were uncomfortable teaching about him to begin with, and there's some pretty liberal teachers at that school. I just know of him because he was also well known in the French Revolution."

Thankfully, the magic museum had little to do with the preferred activities of the home's former owner. They marveled over one of the boxes where a magician claimed to be able to saw a woman in half, with Lorelai trying her very best to get a demonstration happening. The curator merely gave her a resigned sigh born of being asked the same question thousands of times before and issued her a curt denial in accented English.

Their ticket included an adjacent museum filled with antique wind-up toys, and this turned out to be more interesting than the magic museum — and at least three times more creepy.

"If I have nightmares," Lorelai hissed to Luke as mechanical monkeys whirled and clanked their cymbals before them, "I'm blaming you."

He nodded to the one on the left. "I think that one's Taylor."

"Are you saying Taylor's a mechanical monkey?"

"I'm just calling it like it is."

By the time they reached the Musée des Arts Forains, they discovered the one thing that had been left out of Rory's guidebook: that the museum was only open by appointment except at the very end of the year and during European Heritage Days. Lorelai and Rory plastered themselves against the gate, trying to see beyond to the promise land of carnival games and carousels that were locked away to them.

"Maybe we could claim to be part of that school group," Lorelai said, motioning to the students milling about inside.

"You're not a Japanese school girl," Luke told her.

"But I'd rock the outfit. I hated it, but I did look hot in a private school uniform." She waggled her eyebrows at him, which led to flushed cheeks and a "jeez" muttered under his breath as he tried his absolute best not to picture Lorelai in a high school uniform and utterly failing. He quickly scanned for a diversion before his thoughts could lead to absolute mortification.

They wandered into the nearby park, where vendors had wares set up on card tables ringing the outer perimeter. The girls' sadness over missing out on seeing the carousels was quickly supplanted by their love of shopping. Rory gravitated toward a table where an artist was selling graphic novels. Despite the language barrier, she admired the art and struck up a conversation with her halting high school French, bought a book, and exchanged email addresses while Lorelai added another scarf to her collection, this one for Miss Patty.

It took them an hour to get back to the Eiffel Tower. By the time they reached the top via the elevator — Lorelai and Rory refused to climb the stairs that would have gotten them there faster — the sun had long since set, and Paris spread before them in a magical tableau. They bent over the DSLR to get the best pictures of the view, tweaking settings to get it right after each test picture. After realizing they needed a tripod to get anything decent Luke wound up holding the camera steady on the railing while Rory took the shots. Then she grabbed Lorelai's camera and thrust it at him. "Get pictures of me and Mom, please!" Rory begged.

Luke took several shots of them trying, and failing, to look serious then one of them outright mugging for the camera. But his favorite actually wound up on the digital camera, which he switched to after Lorelai's camera had run out of film. It was a test shot as he tweaked the settings, and it had come out perfect. Lorelai had her arms around Rory, both of them beaming as they looked out over the Paris skyline.

Then Rory insisted Luke be in the pictures.

"Come on, you've got to be in one too," she declared and tapped a person nearby on the shoulder. It turned out to be a woman from Virginia, and Rory took a shot of her family before taking the camera from Luke and handing it over.

Luke hated being in photos and did everything he could to avoid them. It was why he actually liked taking pictures, though he didn't get a chance to do so that often. You were less likely to be in one if you were the one behind the camera. But Rory all but hauled him over to the railing and hissed "try to smile" in his ear, the same thing she had done weeks earlier when her graduation photos were taken and she insisted that he be in one. So he and Lorelai flanked Rory and he tried to relax enough to smile. He'd managed a passable photo at Rory's graduation, but he'd been so proud of her at the time and …

Was Lorelai's hand on his _ass_?

Luke gaped at Lorelai and she waggled her eyebrows at him, and that was the photo they got out. Rory was in the middle smiling with a carefree innocence while over her head, Lorelai was giving him a mischievous smile and he was giving her a look of wonder and …

"Wow, no wonder my mom said you look at me like a porterhouse steak," Lorelai murmured as she stared at the photo preview on the back of the camera then at Luke, who had quickly dashed over to one of the telescopes after the photo was taken.

"What was that, Mom?" Rory asked.

"Nothing."

Rory peeked over Lorelai's shoulder. "Can the two of you possibly take a photo without flirting with each other the entire time?"

"What? We never take photos together!"

"Clearly you haven't looked at my graduation photos," Rory muttered.

"What does that mean?"

Rory gave her mother a long-suffering sigh and patted her cheek. "Don't worry, Mommy will figure it out soon. Just don't expect me to give you the birds and the bees lecture, OK?"

"I think you're proof of me hearing that one before." Lorelai wrapped an arm around Rory, and her daughter leaned into her. Together, they studied the Parisian skyline. "I think I'm figuring it out," Lorelai murmured against Rory's hair.

"I think you've always known. That's why I didn't want you two to date before."

"What?" Lorelai pulled away to gape at Rory.

Rory sighed. "Mom, this is _Luke_. We see him every day. Well, now literally every hour for the next few days, but he's part of our lives. Everyone will know if you're together and if you break up."

"Rory."

"You can't just date him," Rory said heatedly. "If you two are together, then you're _together_. If it doesn't work out, it'll be really bad for the two of us and for him. That's why I didn't want you to date before. Mom, you don't have an excellent track record when it comes to dating. You date someone for a few months, then you break up. I just … I don't want that to happen with Luke. He's _ours_."

"Rory," Lorelai said quietly, "what happens between us happens between us."

"I know that. I get it now, after Dean and Jess." Rory gasped. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have-"

"You're not wrong," Lorelai cut in. "Yes, I dated, and yes I didn't stick with any of them very long. But kid, that's because you're part of the package. And there was quite a few guys who realized that having a kid as part of the package didn't mean you were just going to keep quiet in your room with your nose in a book."

Rory huffed a bit. "That's what I do most of the time anyhow."

"Don't ever think there's anything wrong with dating around. You have to try a bunch of different men before realizing who you want to be with all along." Lorelai drew in a shaky breath. "And there are times when a couple days before your wedding that you realize you didn't want to try on your wedding dress every night because you're not excited over the person you're about to marry. But maybe, just maybe if given the chance, you would be that excited with someone else."

Rory went still. "Mom," she said quietly, "why did you break up with Max?"

"Why do you think?"

Rory just smiled.

—

The thing about changing your travel plans on a whim was that suddenly you weren't prepared to handle unexpected down time. Not that Luke ever had that much down time to begin with. His work days ranged somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 to 16 hours depending on how much he needed to get done or simply there just wasn't anything else to do. His only major hobbies were woodworking and ensuring that the Gilmore house didn't fall to pieces. If there was any spare time beyond that, he either watched sports or poked through the bookcase of volumes that had belonged to his parents.

But here he was, sitting a bit awkwardly on the bottom bunk of a hostel bed and trying desperately to think of something to do instead of staring at the bunk above him and feeling like an idiot. The hostel's common room was filled with so many people that Luke wondered where they all slept, and mingling with that big of a crowd didn't appeal to him. A glance through his duffel bag revealed a two-week old issue of _Sports Illustrated_ that he'd already read and was surprised it got into the bag to begin with.

Across from him, Rory sat cross-legged on the other bunk, sorting through items in her backpack. She had a book with her, he mused. She probably had 12 of them, and that was after Lorelai had talked her down. It wouldn't hurt to read. He hadn't done so in awhile. It was quiet, largely because Lorelai had ducked out to take a shower.

Luke opened his mouth to ask her for a book when Rory spoke up. "Do you read? Like read, read for fun? Jess reads all the time, but I've never seen you pick up a book." She flicked a curious look at him.

He wondered if it was a Gilmore trait to be able to read his mind. "I do run a diner that tends to consume most of my waking hours."

Rory grinned. "Touché. What about Jess' mom?"

"Liz? Nah, she's not a big reader. My mom though, she loved books."

Rory stopped rooting through her backpack, her attention fully focused on him. "Really?"

He smiled slightly. "Read to us all the time. Used to stash them everywhere. Even years after she died, we'd be moving furniture or getting something out of a cabinet and have a paperback fall out from where she stashed it. You should look in the glove box of the truck some time."

"One of her books is still in there?"

"Yeah. We got the truck not long before she died, and she stuck a copy of _The Thorn Birds_ in the glove box. My dad never took it out. Neither did I."

Rory grinned. "Aw, being a softie runs in the family." She laughed as he muttered under his breath and his cheeks went flush. "So, do you want to read?"

"Actually, I was just thinking if you had a book I could borrow."

Rory gaped at him. "Really?"

He shrugged. "Didn't bring one myself. I wasn't prepared to have any sort of down time."

Rory nearly bounced in her seat, eyes bright. At that moment, she never looked more like her mother, and the energy was infectious. She grabbed a book with a large red train and a boy with round glasses on the cover. "Here. I just finished this. It's the first _Harry Potter_ book."

He took the book from her. "Oh, that kid wizard."

"You've heard of him?"

He flipped the book over to the back to read the cover blurb. "Kirk decided he missed out on his letter to the magic school and came in the diner all dressed in robes and such. He tried to do some sort levitation spell and instead broke a coffee pot, two bowls, and dumped a plate of eggs down Taylor's shirt."

"Oh my god! How did I miss this?"

"It was last summer."

"Oh." Rory sighed a bit. "I guess I missed a lot then."

It wasn't just her trip to D.C she was referring to, and they both knew it. That summer had been the long stalemate between Luke and Lorelai, neither of them willing to budge in their anger and frustration in the aftermath of Jess and Rory's accident. It hadn't been helped by the return of Rory's father, which had ended badly. He knew that Lorelai had tried forging a new relationship with Christopher until it backfired spectacularly, and even considering the two of them together twisted his gut into a painful knot. At a loss, he wondered if he was being a fool even contemplating … no, Christopher was out of the picture, married to someone else and with a baby. He _had_ to remember that. It wasn't like he had any right to object, especially during that summer.

"You should give it a try, regardless of Kirk," Rory was saying, and he forced his attention back to her. "This is actually the pure version, the one not changed to suit American tastes. If you're going to read _Harry Potter_ , you should do it properly."

"All right. Thanks."

Rory handed him a bookmark to use. "I like the books a lot, but I also really like she was a single mom. Not anymore, she got married. But she was a single mom and wrote this book in cafes while trying to take care of her kid. She's really strong, you know? Reminds me of Mom."

Lorelai opened the door to the room, her hair hanging in long, damp hangs down her back and a towel slung around her neck. She was dressed in the same pajamas she'd worn the previous evening, which consisted of a black top and grey pants covered with stars. "Tag, you're it," she sang. "And better hurry. I saw that group from Germany getting back, and all the hot water will be gone if you're not quick."

Rory yelped and dove for her toiletry bag and pajamas.

Lorelai flopped down next to Luke on his bed, nudging him until he scooted over enough to give her adequate room. She grinned at the book she held. "Oh, you're officially a member of the family now. When Rory foists books off on you, you're in."

"Mom, he's always been a member of the family," Rory said, her head nearly swallowed by her backpack. "He was in when he came to the caterpillar funeral complete with coffin."

"Oh yeah, that little tiny matchbox." Lorelai elbowed his ribs. "You old softie."

"Geez," Luke murmured, not quite sure if he was mortified or pleased that both girls clung to that memory.

"Back in a bit!" Rory said opened the door. "Oh no, I see them heading toward the showers!" She bolted, the door slamming shut behind her.

Luke expected her to take Rory's place on the other bunk, but she didn't move. "So … how do you like being on bottom?" Lorelai asked.

He shrugged. "It's OK. How do you like being on top?"

Lorelai's laughter rang out and Luke nearly smacked his forehead with the book. "I walked into that dirty, didn't I?"

"With that setup, a blind man wouldn't be able to avoid it. And don't think I didn't notice you failing to key in on a couple of key _dirties_ in the past day. I keep count." Lorelai smirked at him, then patted his arm with a happy sigh. "I always wanted bunk beds as a kid, but Mom didn't think they were dignified enough for a Gilmore. Did you have them?"

"Nah. It was just me and Liz, so we each had our own room."

They sat in a comfortable silence, and it marveled Luke that it was something they could do. The Lorelai that the world saw was in constant motion, always talking and doing something, filling the empty spaces of life with chatter, observations, and a relentless optimism that even boosted his spirits. It was unnerving and touching at the same time to realize that Lorelai allowed herself to shed that skin in his presence. Not touching, Luke changed his mind. _Humbling_.

Lorelai reached into her toiletry bag for a wide-toothed comb and began combing out her hair. "Are you doing OK?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Think the jet lag's finally gone."

"That's good," she replied, and he could see those questions still on the tip of her tongue.

"You know," Luke finally said, "you can ask me."

"Ask you what."

"The thing you've been wanting to ask me since last night."

"OK, fine. Just what is it with FBI warnings before movies anyhow?"

"Lorelai," Luke sighed.

She stopped combing her hair and stared at a fixed point somewhere near the ceiling. "Do you wish you were on that cruise?"

"No."

Lorelai swung her gaze to him, and she couldn't hide the surprise. "Yeah?"

He should be looking at her. He needed to be looking at her, to let her know every word he said was sincere. But it was easier to just stare at the floor and talk, especially since the hostel room wasn't exactly up to the task of nervous pacing. "It shouldn't have gotten as far as it did. You were right, you know. It was kind of like committing to her, saying that we were in it for the long haul. I know you suggested I give it a chance, and I decided it was just nerves and not to think so hard on it, but really my gut was telling me not to go. You've gotten that feeling before, right?"

"Yeah," Lorelai said in a way that made Luke want to pull her into his arms and hold her until she felt more secure in … well, everything. Instead, his grip tightened on the book he still held and he found himself talking more to Harry Potter than to her. "Some part of me knew if I went through with it, if we'd flown to Seattle and drove to Vancouver and got on that cruise ship that something would happen I couldn't walk away from. I think when it comes right down to it, Nicole isn't who I'd want to have that level of commitment with. I think she knew it too."

She didn't say anything for so long that he thought she'd stopped listening. "If I hadn't called, would you still have gone on the cruise?" she asked.

"No." And he knew at that moment it was true. That even before the phone call, when Nicole had disappeared into the bathroom, he knew his next step would be to tell her that he couldn't do it and to make his way back to Stars Hollow.

"Do you regret being here? With me and Rory?"

Now he was able to look at her, to see nerves, hope, and numerous other emotions in her eyes. He wondered what she could see in his. "No."

Her smile was tremulous and one of the most beautiful things he'd ever seen. "Good."

This was a moment, he realized as her gaze dropped to his lips and his heart started racing. They had let too many of these pass them by, but this was it. This had to be it, so why was he thinking so much? He leaned forward, discarding the book as he did so with every intention of showing her that he had no regrets, that this was exactly where he wanted to be. Her lips parted just barely, but it was enough, and he's so close to her and he's wanted her for so long …

The door burst open and Rory shot in dressed for bed, her hair wet. "Cold, cold, cold, cold!" she shrieked as they sprung apart. She dropped her laundry and toiletry bag, grabbed the thin duvet from her bunk and wrapped herself up in the best imitation of a mummy Luke had seen outside of Kirk's attempts at a Halloween costume three years earlier. "Of _course_ the Germans beat me in there and I got that shower with the hideous drippy spray and the hot water gave out when there was shampoo in my hair, and someone kept farting so it stank, and I'm _cold_."

Lorelai quickly went into mom mode, teasing and comforting Rory at the same time while Luke fought to breathe normally and picked up the abandoned book, flipping to the first page. He gazed at the two girls over the top of the book, as they laughed and hugged each other, and knew that something had changed. Hopefully, it was a good change.


	6. Walkabout

**Author's note:** I am just as surprised as you are at how fast this story is going at the moment. Some characters are just a bit eager. There's some additional footnotes at the end of the chapter.

* * *

 _Chapter 6: Walkabout_

When Rory initially announced that they would be spending a day on their own, Luke hadn't taken it seriously. But, he realized in a sudden panic the next morning, it was true. They were going to spend the day off on their own adventures. Rory was going to go in one direction, Lorelai in another, and he in a third. They would meet at a specific restaurant at a specific time and would have dinner together.

And it'd all been done with a casual "bye," "see you later," "have fun," and "watch your purse" as the girls took off in opposite directions, leaving Luke standing in front of the Pret a Manger with a slightly horrified look and the almost desperate need to call after Lorelai.

Luke couldn't remember the last time he'd had the entire day to himself. No, wait, he did. It'd been the previous summer when he'd gone to the cabin and stewed over his shattered friendship with Lorelai, trying vainly to lick his wounds and convince himself that it just wasn't worth having her in his life. Well, that turned out to be complete and utter bullshit. He was a year old, a year not-so stupid about that aspect of his life, and now he was alone again. Not permanently, but he certainly had no idea what to do with himself, especially in the middle of a city where hardly anyone spoke his native language.

Resigned, he went back to the hostel to find that one of the girls had liberated his camera. He was willing to bet that girl's name began with "Rory." Luke had given her a graduation present already, going with the tried and true check that he knew went toward this trip, but she loved his camera so much that maybe Lorelai would let him get her one of her own for her birthday. Maybe even now as an early gift. That perked him up slightly. Buying a gift for Rory wasn't shopping per se. It wouldn't ruin his rep to buy a camera. It gave him something to do.

After the bank fiasco, Luke had bought a calling card and spent the better part of an hour changing the travel notices on his credit card, so he didn't need to worry about that. He glanced at the copy of _Harry Potter_ laying on the bed. With a shrug, he collected it, the map and the Metro timetable that Rory had gotten for him.

He inquired at the front desk for a decent camera store that had a staff that could speak English. The attendant marked the store on his map and he headed out into the city. Paris reminded him of New York, just older. The overall ambiance to him was still the same — there were a lot of people and everyone was rude. It was about as far from Stars Hollow as someone could get, and he would deny it until his very last breath, but he was just a bit homesick. God, he even missed _Kirk_. In Stars Hollow, Luke knew his place. He was the gruff, grumpy owner of a hardware store-turned-diner with a long-denied crush on the manager of the town inn. He'd been born in Stars Hollow, and he would live his entire life there. Here, he was just a confused soul adrift in a sea of people and didn't even have a clue how to ask for basic directions in French.

He eventually found his way to the camera store, and thankfully the entire staff was bilingual. It was as classy and reputable as the one he'd visited in Hartford, and a half hour of browsing later, he had the new camera for Rory. It was the same model Canon that Luke had purchased for himself, and he hoped neither Gilmore would bother looking up the price. Lorelai would kill him for spending the equivalent of $1,000 on Rory. But it would last her for years and was a good and sensible purchase.

As the salesperson retrieved the camera for him, he spotted a smaller digital camera that was a pretty reasonable price. He'd done his homework before buying his own camera and remembered that particular model had decent reviews. It'd be good for Lorelai, and she could use it to help with the Dragonfly. So he added it to his purchases.

Then came the trip back to the hostel, because the last thing Luke felt comfortable doing was hauling two expensive cameras still in their boxes around Paris, especially after Lorelai's misfortune that brought him to Europe to begin with. Grateful once more for having their own room, he stashed the bag beneath his and Lorelai's bunk then set back out.

Camera shopping had eaten up two hours of the day. Luke glanced at his watch and nearly groaned. Seven more hours on his own until he met up with Lorelai and Rory as a branch of Chez Clément, a chain of restaurants where celebrities were known to frequent. Come hell or high water, Lorelai had told him, they were not going home before interacting with someone famous.

Or, Luke thought, he would be bailing her out of jail in the process. Then again, Lorelai's flirting powers were nearly unsurpassed.

Still, he was back at the beginning of it all, alone in Paris with nothing to do other than read the book that Rory had given him, so he set back out to do just that.

The hostel was not far from the Grand Palais, which was built as a home for Parisian art events. The streets surrounding it carried familiar names: Winston Churchill, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and General Eisenhower. He wondered if it was linked to the liberation of Paris by the Allies in World War II and made a mental note to ask Rory that. It was a gigantic structure of glass, iron, and steel, and he found himself wandering through it. In some ways, it reminded him of the Javits Center in New York, which he had visited once during a visit to see Liz and Jess.

After Luke emerged from the Palais, he stopped by the café outside it to buy water and a sandwich and carried it across the street to the waterfront. Leafy green trees provided plenty of shade, and people were taking advantage of the nice weather to have impromptu picnics. He stood at the short wall overlooking the Seine, watching the boats drift down the river and missing his father more than a little. Shaking his head, he found a tree nearby and settled himself beneath it. He glanced at his watch again. Six hours to go. He opened the book to the first chapter and unwrapped his sandwich.

At some point after Harry received his Hogwarts letter, he sensed her. He could always sense her. He could walk into a room blindfolded and wearing earplugs and know exactly where she was. The nerves in his stomach kicked up, then he caught the scent of her perfume on the breeze. Ordering himself to not leap up and fling his arms around her in gratitude, Luke merely turned the page and read the paragraph on Harry learning how to enter Diagon Alley three times before Lorelai dropped to the ground next to him.

"Hey there, bookworm!" she said cheerfully.

"I'm not a bookworm," he muttered.

Lorelai brandished her camera, waving it beneath his nose. "That's not what me and my trusty camera tells me!"

Luke suddenly regretted buying her that damn digital camera. Who was he kidding? He was still going to give it to her. "I thought you ran out of film."

"I got more. I've been looking for you for ages."

He read the paragraph again and hoped he didn't look ridiculously pleased. "I thought the point of this whole thing was to spend the day by ourselves."

"Well, I went to one of those old royal palaces, the one that belonged to Cardinal Richelieu because hey, Three Musketeers. Then I wandered through some of the shops. I know Rory will be spending all day at Shakespeare and Company, so I was worried you'd be lonely."

He had been lonely. Not anymore. "I'm managing."

"Do you want me to leave you alone?"

 _No!_ Luke placed the bookmark Rory had given him in the book and closed it, giving her his full attention. "No, no, you're fine. You can stay if you want. I don't mind." _Please, please don't leave me._

Lorelai scooped up his half-eaten sandwich and took a bite without looking at the contents. The look on her face was so comical that he bust out laughing. He couldn't remember the last time he even laughed, and he couldn't decide if Lorelai's look of horror was because of his sandwich or his reaction. It only made him laugh harder.

Gamely, she swallowed the bite and scowled. "Oh _God_ , it tastes like old socks!"

"It does not!"

Lorelai grabbed his water and took a swig. "What was in that? Legwarmers from the 80s that curled up and died?"

He chuckled. "Cucumber, chicken, hummus, and sprouts."

"Sprouts?"

Luke leaned in closer to her, as if imparting a great secret. "Alfalfa sprouts," he said gravely.

Lorelai went pale. "Oh my God."

"I think you just had more vegetables in that one bite than you've had in a year."

With a shriek, Lorelai pitched the sandwich away. They watched as it arched through the air and landed with a plunk in the river.

Luke gaped at her. "Did you seriously just throw my lunch in the Seine?"

"It needed to die. That was a mercy killing. You'll thank me later. I've got to go purge this with ice cream. Quick, let's get out of here."

"You mean before the cops come and fine us for throwing food in the river."

"Oh! I got something for you!" Instead of scrambling to her feetl, Lorelai pulled her purse around, and Luke was pleased to see it was the one he'd bought for her at the Newark airport. She rummaged through it until she pulled out a baseball cap of deep crimson. "Do you know how hard it is to find one of these here?" She turned it so it faced backwards and he obligingly let her plunk it on his head.

She sat back, tilted her head and frowned as Luke adjusted the fit. "What?" he asked.

"Well," Lorelai said after a moment, "you at least look like you again. Somewhat."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Luke asked, but Lorelai was already digging in her bag again. She pulled out a thin sack and leaned against the tree, scooting closer to him. To his surprise, she pulled out a pair of circular knitting needles with a colorful sock started on it.

"You knit?"

"When I get in the mood. It was something small I was able to bring on the plane now that they allow knitting needles again. And it met the Rory approval criteria. Mainly because she benefits from it."

"Oh yeah?"

Lorelai was actually good at it and had some speed. "It's another one of those things I taught myself after I left my parents'."

"Knitting's not on the Emily Gilmore approval list, huh?" Luke opened his book again, but was completely uninterested in reading.

Lorelai shrugged as she pushed one side of stitches down the needle until they rested on the cable. She flipped the sock around and moved the other side of stitches into place. "I don't think it ever occurred to her to even try. But when you have a curious toddler and the floor of a potting shed, a pair of needles and some cheap acrylic yarn make durable socks that are more cost effective than cheap ones from Wal-Mart. Mia taught me how."

"You sew too," Luke observed, remembering that Lorelai had made a number of Rory's formal dresses over the years.

"I didn't think I'd like it as much as I do. At first, it was just a way of making sure I didn't have to spend so much on clothes, especially considering kids act like they're on a Miracle-Gro diet for the first decade or so of their lives. I bought everything from thrift shops and made them over, cut down my old clothes for Rory. Then I had to get good enough to where Rory wouldn't be teased about it. Rory's been made fun of because she's a bookworm, but no one ever claimed she looked like she was dressed in hand-me-downs when she was for the first 11 years of her life."

"What else did you try that your mom would hate?"

"Crocheting, but I hated it. I just didn't catch onto it like I did with knitting. Embroidery reminds me too much of Hartford upper crust society, but I've done it. You can get those kits from the store where you embroider on pillowcases and they're cheap with coupons. So I did some up for Rory when she was little. I like making scrapbooks. We made a lot of our own cards because it was cheap and people were thrilled to get them. Mia kept a scrapbook of every single one of them we gave her." She nudged him. "Hey, take off one of your shoes."

"What?"

"Take off your shoe. And your sock too." Lorelai dove into her bag as Luke goggled at her, emerging with a second small bag, a pen, and a notebook.

"I'm not taking my shoe off," he protested.

"Fine, I'll take your shoe off." She scooted down to his feet and pulled at the laces of his left sneaker. "I don't see you wearing these often."

"That's because if you drop something in a kitchen, boots are more effective than tennis shoes. Lorelai, what are you doing?"

She pulled off the shoe and the white sock beneath it. "Measuring your foot."

"Why?" he stuttered.

"So I can make you socks!" Lorelai opened the small bag and took out a tape measure.

"You want to _make_ me socks?"

"Mmm hmm." She pulled the tape measure around the widest part of his foot and noted the measurement. She tilted her head. "You have nice toes."

Luke really hope she couldn't see that he was blushing. He cast his gaze to the trees above, silently beseeching them. "Geez. They're just toes."

"Yeah, but you see some really horrible toes out there. All covered with fungus or ragged hangnails or no nails at all. Yours are just really nice toes.

Lorelai measured the length of his foot at a couple of places, then pushed his jeans up ever so slightly. His breath hitched as she measured the circumference of his lower calf, then the length from his heel to a point several inches up on his calf. She wrote it in all everything down in her notebook.

"I still make socks for me and Rory. Sookie too, she loves them." Lorelai showed Luke her notebook, his name written in all caps across the top of one page. She flipped back to show pages for Sookie, Miss Patty, Babette, Mia, and Rory at various ages. All of them had different measurements she'd taken over the years. "I don't do them as often as I did when Rory was little, but I usually do a pair for everyone's stockings at Christmas. Stockings in stockings, get it?"

"Yeah, I get it."

"So, I'll add you to the list."

"Make sure they're not _those_." Luke nodded to the garish-colored socks already on her needles.

"Don't worry, I'll make them manly just for you." Lorelai patted his leg, massaging it as she did so.

Carefully, Luke lowered his book so it was resting facedown on his lap, trying to keep the movement as casual as possible. Her fingers ghosted over his foot, and he had no idea that feet could be so erotic. She traced the blue veins over the top of the foot, her head bent, and he wondered what she was thinking.

He wondered how long it would take them to get back to the hostel.

He wondered if Rory could manage to somehow stay out overnight.

He wondered how steep the fine was for public indecency in Paris.

Lorelai suddenly grabbed his big toe. "This little piggie went to market," she teased wiggling it.

"Lorelai!"

"This little piggy went home." She moved from toe to toe. "This little piggie had roast beef, except if his name was Luke, because then he'd say how bad red meat is for you and insist that he have turkey instead of roast beef like the rest of us. Ergo, this little piggie had none. And this little piggie went …" She attacked his foot at the last one, tickling him so ruthlessly that he couldn't stop the laughter if he tried. He wasn't sure if she finished the rhyme because he couldn't hear her over his own laughing. By the time he managed to collect himself, his sock was back on his foot.

Lorelai scrambled to her feet, bouncing on her toes. "Let's go for a walk!"

Luke took several deep breaths until he was sure he could move the book without embarrassing himself. He tugged his shoe back on and got to his feet, tucking the book, his map, and the Metro timetable into Lorelai's purse.

It turned out to be quite a long walk, but he didn't particularly mind. Two hours of walking with Lorelai with various stops along the way was vastly preferable to an afternoon of solitude and less dangerous than sitting in one place alone. Luke reminded himself of every reason why starting something sexual was a bad idea at the moment considering they were sharing close living quarters with an 18-year-old. Rory was more effective than a chastity belt. This was a mother-daughter trip, not a let's-get-it-on trip. He needed to go home before he lost his freaking mind. But to do what? Sit in the diner and pine until the girls came back? Both were distinctly different forms of torture.

Their walk took them into the Montmartre part of Paris, and the way Lorelai suddenly began consulting her guidebook made Luke think this had been her original goal all along for the day. It touched him that she apparently wanted to share it with him, no matter what it was she was doing. He just enjoyed spending the time with her, following as she led their way through small shops and sampled an array of food from a number of cafes. He even begrudgingly admitted that macaroons weren't entirely horrible as he ate a raspberry one Lorelai gave him, telling himself that fruit had to be used at some point during its creation.

Eventually, they reached a canal that looked big enough to have at least one boat be able to sail down it. Luke could see a couple of stone bridges and an iron bridge in the distance if he squinted. Most of the passages over the canal though were provided via narrow locks that could be raised out of the way when a boat needed to pass through.

"Oh, my God!" Lorelai ran ahead and onto the footbridge which he knew predated the both of them and had to be sturdier than it looked, yet he still worried. Not so much for the bridge. Just that Lorelai would somehow slip off it and into the canal. "This is it! The _Amelie_ bridge!"

"Sorry?"

She rolled her eyes at him. "She cultivates a taste for small pleasures. Plunging her hand deep into a sack of grain …"

"Is this why you were molesting that sack of grain a few streets back?"

"… Cracking creme brûlée with a teaspoon …"

"Which is why you ordered three of them at dinner last night."

"… And skipping stones at St. Martin's Canal." She spread her arms. "This is it, Luke! It's the bridge from _Amelie_!"

Luke shook his head. "Never heard of it."

Lorelai huffed and pointed at him. "You, my friend, are sentenced to mandatory weekly appearances at movie night until we get your cinema knowledge up to snuff. Now, help me find a stone."

"You're crazy," Luke muttered, but he obliged her. He quickly found a couple stones of a good size and weight for skipping and handed them over. Lorelai grabbed them and all but danced back onto the bridge. She carefully approached the side without the protective railing and knelt. His breath caught. He wasn't sure if it was being overly worried she'd plunge into the canal or if the smile on her face was just that breathtaking. He hadn't seen her this happy in a long while.

Lorelai hefted the first stone, then just tossed it into the water. She frowned. "It didn't skip."

"That's because you didn't throw it right. You have to skip it properly."

"That's what I'm trying to do!" She tried the second stone and it flew two feet away and promptly sank without skipping.

"Have you ever tried skipping a stone?"

Lorelai huffed. "Well, it wasn't exactly on the course listings for the Emily Gilmore School of Failed Debutantes."

Luke found a few more stones that were skipworthy and carefully joined her on the bridge. She shifted so he could slide around her and crouch beside her on her left side. "So, to skip a stone," he explained, "you have to have a flat stone that's like this one. Pretty large, fairly hefty. So, you curve your fingers around it like this, so you're kinda just holding the outside and not the middle. Then hold your hand like this." He showed her the proper way. "Then throw it out and at the water at the same time." He threw the stone he held, and it skipped over the water three times before sinking.

Lorelai clapped. "Oh! You did it! Of course you've skipped stones before."

He smirked. "That's because I didn't attend the Emily Gilmore School of Failed Debutantes."

"Ha!"

"Here, try it now." Luke handed Lorelai another stone, then reached for her hand to adjust her grip on it. The moment his hand touched her skin, he felt his knees wobble and wondered for a moment if he would accidentally wind up in the canal instead of her. He'd shown her how to do things countless times, and each time was the same - that initial shock of skin-to-skin contact, then the heightened awareness as he showed her what needed to be done. He wrapped his arm around her to pull hers back to the angle needed. "You good?"

"Yeah," Lorelai replied, her voice somewhat strained. "Yeah, I'm good."

"OK, now, throw it. Down and out."

She threw the stone, and it gave two short skips before sinking.

"Oh! I did it! Did you see? I skipped it!" Lorelai whipped her face around until their lips were inches away from each other. "Just like Amelie," she breathed.

The memory swept back to the forefront of Luke's mind in a wave, plucked from the part of his brain labeled "Missed opportunities, you idiot." They'd been just like this crouching behind the counter at the diner, hiding from the rest of the town and not wanting to acknowledge the attraction that was there. But it was there, this living thing that dogged and curled around them, ensnaring them until they were forced by circumstance to acknowledge it. He was fully prepared for something, someone to come along and destroy the moment. It wasn't like that was a new thing.

He wasn't sure who made the first move. Maybe they moved together, in sync as they seemed to be so much of the time. Then his mouth was touching hers, and he heard her soft, surprised gasp. In reflex, he pulled away, worried that she didn't want it, but then her lips were on his and it was glorious.

The arm that was around her tightened, bring her fully into the kiss as his nerveless fingers dropped the remaining stone he held into the water. She shifted, throwing her arms around his neck and catching the rim of his cap in the process. It popped off his head and fell in the canal.

"Good," she muttered against his lips. "I hated that cap."

"You're the one who bought it."

"It's not you. I'll buy you another." And then she was kissing him again, and it was so much better than anything he allowed himself to imagine. He poured every year, every month, every hour, every minute of his repressed feelings into that kiss and hoped beyond hope that she felt even a fraction of what he felt for her. He pulled her into him, his hands diving into her hair, and the footbridge swayed slightly from the movement. He knew he couldn't maintain the crouch, that she couldn't either, but he couldn't seem to break the kiss long enough to attend to his screaming legs.

The loud jangle of a bicycle bell had them jumping apart and nearly tumbling off the bridge. He looked over her shoulder to see a man on a bike with a delivery basket on the back, muttering under his breath in French. He slowly got to his feet and helped her up, and with an apologetic wave, they crossed to the other side. The bicyclist tore across the bridge like the hounds of hell were at his heels, and the middle finger salute he gave showed them exactly what he thought of their first kiss.

Their _first_ kiss.

A thousand scenarios had crossed his mind at one point or another over the years about how their first kiss would go. Luke was pretty sure it would be born out of them yelling at each other, one of them snapping, then they would be going at it. Breaking of numerous health codes may or may not have been involved. None of them came close to the reality, and it was so much better. He found himself studying her, trying to gauge her reaction. Her eyes, such a brilliant brilliant blue, had glazed over, her pupils blown wide from surprise and arousal.

Lorelai licked her lips and threaded her fingers through his. She tugged him until his forehead was touching hers ."Hey," she said softly.

"Hey."

Her lips pulled up in to a mischievous smile. "Wanna do that again?"

His response was to back her into a nearby tree and fully oblige her.

* * *

 **Research notes** : I based the fictional hostel on a real hostel in roughly the same location of Paris. It's a couple blocks from the Grand Palais and about a 5-minute walk from a Pret a Manger. The Eiffel Tower is across the Seine. The first sub-$1000 DSLR didn't debut until August 2003, which would be while they were on their trip, so I fudged the date slightly to have Luke (and now Rory) already owning one of these Canons. The camera for Lorelai is a Nikon Coolpix.

In "Knit, People, Knit!" no one acted surprised that Lorelai knew how to knit other than He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named, and even then it wasn't a surprise that she knew how, just that she was doing it. Given how quickly you can knit up toddler-sized socks once you're used to it, and Lorelai's thriftiness when it came to making over clothes for Rory, it makes sense that Lorelai would learn how to knit when she and Rory lived in the potting shed. What better way to stick a thumb at Emily by knowing how to darn a sock?


	7. Intersections in Real Time

**Author's note:** A couple of lines of dialogue were borrowed from "Written in the Stars." So if something seems familiar to you, that's where it came from. This chapter was born out of several reviews speculating on how the people in Stars Hollow would take Luke's sudden change in vacation destination.

* * *

 _Chapter 7: Intersections in Real Time_

 _Ten days later: Stars Hollow_

"Oh, Kirk! Kirk, sweetie, do you have my mail on you?" Babette asked as Kirk entered the diner wearing his USPS uniform.

"Proper postal procedures mandate that I can't give you your mail unless it's at your place of residence," Kirk informed her. "The only mail I'm allowed to deliver here is either for Luke or the diner. Since Luke isn't here and did not place a hold on his mail, I am permitted to leave it with the person to currently runs this establishment provided he or she does not open the mail marked as Luke's personal correspondence."

Caesar stuck his head out of the kitchen. "Just place it by the register, Kirk, I'll deal with it in a bit."

"Oh come on now, Kirk," Babette insisted, "surely it wouldn't hurt to see if there's anything for me. It'll save you a trip all the way out to my house. Plus, I'm collecting Lorelai's mail for her."

"Postal regulations forbid me from …"

Across from her, Patty squinted as she spotted a stack of colorful postcards at the edge of the bag. "Oh here, I'll make this easy on all of us." Ignoring Kirk's yelped protest, she snatched up the cards and shuffled through them. "Postcards from France! Babette, here's yours."

"Oooh, the Eiffel Tower," Babette cooed, eagerly starting to read it.

"Lane, two from Rory," Patty said, handing them over to Lane as she scooted by with an empty tray. Lane gave her a polite thanks before disappearing into the kitchen to read them. Luke hiring her on to assist Caesar before his cruise had been a very smart move on his part. Too bad, she mused, he hadn't had the same sense when it came to actually going on the cruise itself. She didn't care for Nicole one bit. "One for me, two for Sookie. Kirk, here's one for you."

Kirk stopped his recitation of postal rules long enough to gape at Patty. "Really?"

"Here you are." Patty handed him a card.

"Lorelai sent me a postcard. Lorelai sent _me_ a postcard!"

"Everyone got one, sweetie," Babette pointed out as Kirk ignored her to read it.

"Taylor, here's yours," Patty said, walking over to Taylor's table and placing a card with two mechanical monkeys on it.

"Really? Well, how very thoughtful," Taylor said, abandoning his sandwich to peruse the card. "This isn't from Lorelai though. That's not her handwriting, and she certainly wouldn't just put 'We're calling the one on the left Taylor.'"

"Yes, she would," Patty replied.

"Well, that's definitely not her handwriting. I have seen Lorelai's handwriting plenty of times, and it most certainly doesn't look like this!" Taylor brandished the card at Patty.

"No, it's not," Patty murmured, glancing at the postmark of that card and the ones she still held. It was dated during the same time period as the ones she passed out and matched Rory's itinerary. She frowned. She'd seen that handwriting before, but she couldn't quite place it.

The bells jangled as Sookie and Jackson slowly entered the diner together, accommodating Sookie's advancing pregnancy. "Did you get them?" Sookie asked eagerly.

"Yes, I have yours and Michel's," Patty said and handed Sookie three postcards. Sookie beamed and took the remaining open table in the center of the diner and Jackson the seat across from hers. She reached for his hand, and he squeezed it as she began to read.

"Huh, a card for Caesar," Patty murmured, glancing at the one card left. "Same handwriting as Taylor's. Not Paris though. I think Avignon." She dropped it on the stack of mail that Kirk left for Luke and the diner. She tried not to read the message, but the writing was rather large and hard to ignore. It said. "Hope things are going well. This is some area in the south of France. Put it up somewhere. I'll check in soon." The gears began to turn as she stared at the postcard.

"Caesar," Patty called out, "have you heard from Luke lately?"

"Nah," Caesar replied. He emerged from the kitchen, wiping his hands on a rag. "His flight's not until tomorrow though, so he should be back in the diner day after next. Not really the type of person to randomly call and check in on things." Something Caesar was pleased with, because it meant his boss trusted him implicitly. "He's really not one to send postcards, you know?"

"Is he now," Patty murmured.

Sookie shrieked.

Patty whipped around, or rather whipped around as fast as her knees would let her. Sookie had her hand over her mouth as she read one of the postcards.

"Oh my God," Sookie gasped. " _Oh my God!"_

"Sookie, what's wrong?" Jackson rushed around to the other side of the table. "Is it the baby? Are you having contractions? Is …" He began reading the postcard over Sookie's shoulder. "Oh my God!"

"Jackson!" Sookie scolded him.

Jackson just gaped at her. "Luke's in Paris with Lorelai?"

The entire diner went silent except for Kirk, who was reading his postcard to himself for the 15th time. With funny voices.

"Jackson, Lorelai didn't want people to know! It's the first thing she said!" Sookie said.

"Luke's in Europe?" Jackson repeated, not listening.

"I thought he was on that cruise?" Babette asked.

Caesar picked up the postcard that Patty left on the counter. "Huh. He must be in Europe. That's his handwriting."

"It _is_ Luke's handwriting," Taylor declared, waving his own card. "I remember it from the lease documents I signed for the ice cream shoppe. I went over every detail personally. What does he mean a mechanical monkey reminds him of me?"

"Oh, Taylor, I'm not explaining it if you can't figure it out," Patty replied, making her way to Sookie and Jackson. "Sweetie, the cat's out of the bag, so you might as well let us all in the loop."

Sookie glared at her husband, who merely shrank and gulped a bit. "Sorry," Jackson whispered. She ignored him.

Patty took the cards from Sookie and oriented them in the correct order, then handed back the one addressed to Michel.

"Hey, Sookie," she read out loud. "Please don't tell anyone what I'm about to tell you, but I've got to let you know. It's been a crazy couple of days. Rory and I got to Paris, and my purse and cellphone got stolen almost right away."

"Oh the poor dear!" Babette cried.

"Hope she got those cards canceled," Gypsy said from her table. Andrew, sitting across from her, nodded in agreement.

"I'm sure she did," Patty replied and turned back to the cards. "I panicked, not wanting to call my parents or be a burden on you and Jackson …"

"Of course she could have called us," Sookie sniffled, tears welling up. "Lorelai's never a burden. Oh damn, these pregnancy hormones." She rummaged through her purse for a tissue, then accepted napkins that Jackson passed over. "I'm still mad at you."

"I know, baby."

"… So I called Luke," Patty continued.

"I remember that," Caesar said, and everyone's attention swung to him. "She called the diner first, was in a real panic. The boss didn't want me giving out his cell phone number to just anyone, but it's Lorelai, you know? He'd want Lorelai to have it."

"Of course he does. You did the right thing," Patty said, then went back to reading. "Luke agreed to wire the money when he got to Seattle, because I forgot he was going on the cruise with Nicole. It didn't come, so I was panicking again, then suddenly _he_ showed up! He broke up with Nicole and bought a one-way ticket to Paris to help me and Rory. Ohmigod, Sookie, I don't know what to think. And he's going to stay with me. Me and Rory. We invited him, and he's staying. So, we'll see how this goes. More later. All my love, Lorelai."

Lane burst out of the kitchen. "Oh my God, Luke's in Europe with Rory and Lorelai!"

"Yes, dear, we know," Patty told her. "Lorelai told Sookie."

"And Rory told me! It's on this second card I got from her. She said Luke showed up to bail them out of some money issues and decided to stay when they asked."

"Did she say anything else?" Patty asked.

"Only that she's gotten him to read the first _Harry Potter_ book," Lane replied.

Patty tutted a bit. "Not a prime source of information there." She flipped to Sookie's second card, and her eyebrow winged up. "Oh! Well, well, well, things have certainly gotten interesting."

"What is it?" Babette asked.

Respecting the bonds of friendship, Patty passed the postcard back to Sookie so Lorelai's best friend could find out for herself before the rest of the town. Sookie scanned it then shrieked again. "Ohmigod, Luke and Lorelai kissed!"

"What?" A chorus of other voices chimed in.

Patty and Sookie exchanged a knowing look and Sookie quickly buried the card in her purse before anyone else could read it. The first card was one thing, but the second … it was far more private.

"It's about time," Gypsy muttered.

"Rory, you're holding out on me," Lane moaned.

"This is bad," Taylor declared. "This is very, very bad."

"What do you mean this is bad, Taylor?" Babette asked. "We've been wanting these two to get together for years! I wonder who won the betting pool?"

"Think of the consequences," Taylor told her. "What will happen when the relationship goes sour as, let's face it, most of Lorelai's relationships do? Do I have to remind you about Fay Wellington and Art Brush? Luke owns the diner and Lorelai will be opening an inn here within the next year.

"Taylor, there's no reason to believe that a relationship between Luke and Lorelai would have an economic impact on this town," Patty objected.

"Yes, it will! Two empty storefronts sat right here on this square for a year. I have the study that was done, charts, and everything. This simply can't happen again." Taylor pushed up from his table. "I have to get Gilmore and Danes vs. Stars Hollow on the agenda right away."

"Taylor, Luke's not due back until tomorrow, and Lorelai's not back until the end of August. Give it a rest," Patty said. "Just let those two be happy. Lord knows they deserve it after all this time."

"I can't give it a rest," Taylor thundered. "There's too much at stake. However, I am willing to table the matter until both parties involved can attend a town meeting together."

"Fair enough," Patty sighed as Taylor tossed down a couple bills and stormed out of the diner. She shook her head. "I'll try to talk him down from it," she told the rest of the room.

"Oh, those two are going to make the most adorable babies," Babette cooed.

—

Sookie waited until Jackson had gone to bed before re-reading the second postcard. It made her giddy enough that she consulted Rory's itinerary before pulling out the ingredients for her chocolate chip and toffee cookies. It would be worth the $100 to express a care package to Lorelai, Rory, and Luke, along with a very lengthy letter expressing her pleasure. She wished the girls had taken Rory's laptop. It would be so much faster, but the care package was much better. Oh, she could put her lingonberry and lemon preserves in there, and some rosemary crackers to go with them.

Humming, she preheated the oven, began adding ingredients to the KitchenAid, then consulted Lorelai's card again. This one had been sent from Avignon and was covered in tiny, tiny print. Lorelai had even given up and written on the front side of the card when she ran out of room on the back..

 _Sookie —_

 _We're in Avignon, and I got my cards! Hallelujah! Forget about the trip, Luke kissed me yesterday! Well, I kissed him too, we kissed each other on the Amelie bridge! You know, the one where she skips the stones? He kissed me, then he kissed me again until we nearly got arrested, then when Rory was in the shower last night, we kissed some more. I can't seem to stop kissing him, Sook. Except we had to because of Rory, even though she approves me of kissing him. But we haven't talked yet and we need to figure out what we are first._

"A couple of idiots," Sookie said fondly.

 _I'll call when we get to Rome where I booked that B &B for Dragonfly research. - L_

Sookie flipped to the front of the card where Lorelai had scribbled over the blue sky.

 _He's the best kisser ever. I think … God, I think … I think we're …_

She had run out of room, but Sookie filled in the blanks.

"She's in love!" Sookie sang. "She's in love and Luke's in love and they're in love with each other!" She patted her stomach. "This, baby, is the best day ever!"


	8. Moments of Transition

**Author's Note:** And we're back! I'm sorry for such a long hiatus on this story. As some of you know, there was a death in my family, which meant I had to take an unexpected weeklong trip to Georgia. But what 12-hour car rides are good for are brainstorming lots and lots of fic (and singing songs at the top of your lungs, including the "Numbers Song" from _Sesame Street_ ), including this story and the follow-ups I have in mind. I will be traveling again soon (if you plan to attend ECCC in Seattle, shoot me a message and I'll let you know my Artist Alley table) but the updates should remain steady from here on out.

* * *

 _Chapter 8: Moments of Transition_

 _The same day - Rome_

They let Rory do the honors because Lorelai lost one round too many of rock-paper-scissors. Luke stood behind them with all their backpacks, wanting nothing to do with it and muttering under his breath just to get on with it already.

So Rory swiped the key card and gently eased the door open, carefully getting the lay of the land.

"Well?" Lorelai asked, bouncing on her toes, trying her best not to look over Rory's shoulder and failing. But what lay before them seemed promising - an entrance flanked by doors and an open space that lay beyond. She saw the corner of the bed, tastefully made with a grey and cream duvet and she longed to fling herself across it.

Rory took two steps inside. "It's .. It's heaven. There's a king-sized bed."

"Oh my God." Lorelai whirled around to where she and Rory had dumped their backpacks at Luke's feet. She admitted the view there was pretty fine too. She had coaxed him into shorts in Avignon and had added a couple of short-sleeved plaid shirts to his travel wardrobe that reminded her of those he had at home. He was still sans baseball cap, as the three she'd bought for him in the days since Paris had been roundly rejected. "There's a king-sized bed!"

Luke merely sighed.

"And? And?" Lorelai spun back, clapping her hands.

Rory stuck her head outside, gesturing to one of the doors that flanked the room's entrance. "And an ensuite bathroom!"

Lorelai clutched her chest and staggered a couple steps. "You hear that, Elizabeth? I'm comin' to join you, honey!"

"Oh, Mommy! It's real! It's really real!" Rory caught Lorelai's hands in her own and they did a little impromptu dance that consisted of bouncing on the balls of their feet and squealing. "It's a private room, and it's _ours!_ At least for the next week.

Luke sighed and pushed past the girls to haul the three backpacks in the room as Lorelai cried, "And it doesn't smell like _feet!_ " She raced inside and took in the full effect. There was said king-sized bed in the center of the room and a cot set up alongside the window. She promptly flung herself facedown on the bed. "Just wake me in six days," she said into the mattress as Rory flopped down next to her. She listened to the sounds of shuffling as backpacks were placed, the soft creak of the cot as Luke settled on it. She didn't need to look up to know he'd probably dug out Rory's book again. Minutes past as the three of them did nothing but breathe and enjoy the air conditioning that circulated the room.

"Do you hear that?" Rory asked.

"What?" Lorelai replied.

" _Silence_."

Lorelai rolled onto her back, flicking a quick glance across the room. Yup, Luke had the book out. He was about two-thirds of the way through from what she could tell. He hadn't talked much about it other than to say he liked it well enough. "I never thought I would love silence so much. Well except for the time Mom dragged me to that spa but didn't honor any of the silence signs during the sessions and -"

"Lorelai, silence means no talking," Luke said, not bothering to look up from the book.

"You're talking," she pointed out.

"Only to tell you _not_ to talk."

Lorelai grabbed a pillow and lobbed it across the room at him. It knocked the book from his hands.

"Mom, that was my pillow!" Rory protested.

Luke lobbed the pillow back at Rory, making sure it landed next to her and not on her. Ergo, it fell to the other side of the bed.

"Thanks, Luke." Rory picked up the pillow and hugged to her chest. She sniffed at Lorelai. "Meanie. I should make you sleep on the floor."

"You wouldn't let your only mother sleep on the floor," Lorelai gasped.

"I would if you keep stealing my pillows. Go steal someone else's pillows."

"The only other pillows other than mine are Luke's. His pillow to bed ratio is higher because he has his own bed."

He had retrieved the book by this point and was smoothing out the bent corners from being attacked by a pillow. "I have a cot," he corrected. "Besides, I should have my own room."

"Well they didn't have any more for the length of our stay," Lorelai replied.

The B&B in Rome had been one of the few non-hostel locations they had booked prior to Luke's surprise arrival in Paris. The newly opened Nicolas Inn was so close to the Forum and Colosseum that Rory nearly wept when Lorelai announced she had secured a reservation there. It was their big splurge of the trip. But it only had four rooms, so they couldn't get another. But the owners were not only happy to supply a cot for Luke to use, but were excited to be a fount of research that Lorelai could take back for the Dragonfly.

"I told you, I can crash somewhere else so you and Rory don't have to share," Luke insisted and was rewarded with twin cries of "No!" and all the pillows being thrown at him. This time, he plucked them up before the girls could bother moving off the bed to take them back.

Lorelai levered herself onto her arms and scowled. "Well, now Luke has all the pillows," she told Rory.

"Too bad, you lost your pillow privileges." He emphasized this by folding his arms on top of them and picking up the book once more.

"You know, there's something I've always wanted to know about you …," Lorelai began, her eyes twinkling with such mischief that Luke narrowed his own at her.

"You found the answer to _that_ when you pawed through my luggage."

Lorelai laughed. "Dirty!"

"I don't want to know," Rory muttered, covering her face with her hands.

"Well, there's something else I've always wanted to know," Lorelai continued.

"What's that?" Luke asked suspiciously.

Lorelai waggled her eyebrows, then her fingers. Rory uncovered her face as her mother did this. Her eyes went wide, then she smirked at Luke. He felt sweat start to roll down his back.

Then Lorelai launched off the bed and pounced him while Rory lunged for her camera.

Yes, Luke was ticklish.

* * *

The hard part about kissing was that at some point you had stop kissing. Even when you really, really wanted to keep kissing. Especially when you wanted to climb the guy you were kissing like a tree, wrap your legs around his waist and kiss until the cows came home. Or you were arrested. Which they nearly were in Paris.

Who knew the public indecency laws in Paris were so strict? He had been touching her breast over her clothes, damn it.

Kissing was a bad idea. It was such a bad idea, because now that the dam had broken, Lorelai didn't want to stop. And she knew Luke didn't want to stop either if those looks he kept giving her meant what she thought they meant. She was perfectly aware she was about to either combust from the heat of his gaze or melt into a puddle of Lorelai goo. Either one required a good bit of awkward explaining to Rory, and it was only the thought of her daughter waiting for them that kept her from finding the nearest taxi, going back to the hostel, and tying him to the bottom bunk until she throughly had her way with him.

She wondered in the days since if he would be open to that.

There was no grand proclamation of the change in their status, mainly because she wasn't quite sure what they were yet. Were they still just friends? Friends who kiss? Friends on their way to enjoying lots and lots of benefits? Were they now boyfriend and girlfriend?

They needed to talk, but the universe seemed to be aligned against them. As the next 10 days took them through the south of France and into Italy, no amount of cajoling or flirting netted them anything other than the dormitory-style hostels that the girls had pre-booked before their trip. B&Bs had been booked, and all but the most wallet-gouging hotels were either full or didn't have rooms big enough to accommodate all three of them. They found beds for Luke easily enough at their hostels, but there were no more private rooms. The three were segregated into gender-based dorms, jammed among strangers. It suited Rory and Lorelai just fine, both of them easily adaptable to the situation. It unnerved Luke to no end, having avoided dorms since he was a Boy Scout - and he wasn't a huge fan of them back then either.

One golden afternoon, they thought they had their moment when they escaped for a picnic in a secluded park in Pisa. But then Mother Nature decided to get in on the act and put an abrupt end to any thought of sex for the next five days. But they at least talked a little bit between the kissing. Really, they had about seven years of kissing to make up for, priorities right?

But now here they were in Rome for the next week and Lorelai was determined to get a real date out of this and find out where they stood. She felt like they were at the top of a wobbly pile of Jenga sticks, waiting for that final piece that would crumble the whole pile. No, no, that was a bad analogy. Maybe more like a balloon about to pop. A really, really big balloon of unresolved sexual tension that seemed to get fuller and fuller with every stolen kiss, every secret hand grab, every molten stare exchanged in a public setting. Yes, that was better. She was going to pop with frustration. But, she _knew_ the explosion was going to be nothing short of spectacular. Granted, she'd always thought that. So had Sookie, her not-so-secret pervert of a best friend who had once told her that she fully expected Lorelai and Luke to go "Bull Durham" in the diner at some point. Lorelai had laughed it off at the time, but now she was eying the table in the corner of their room and getting ideas.

"You've gotten pretty far in the book," Rory was telling Luke, and this was enough to pull Lorelai's attention away from the table, which was loaded with various snacks and the remains of the dinner they'd ordered in.

While Lorelai was lost in her thoughts, somehow Rory's books had all managed to leave the relative safety of her backpack and were now spread across the floor. There were considerably more books in the bag than Rory had started with, and Lorelai didn't need a Magic 8 ball to realize that another package would be winging its way across the Atlantic to Babette to join the one sent from London, the one sent from Paris, and the one sent from Pisa. Luke and Rory sat among Rory's pile of treasures, his borrowed book in hand as they talked. Lorelai rolled onto her stomach and saw that the bookmark in the book that Luke held had moved much closer to the end and smiled. If he was in the book where she guessed he was, he'd be done with it by the next day.

"It's not that hard of a read," Luke was telling Rory. "But, I don't like him."

"Who?" Rory asked, brow furrowed. "Harry?"

"No, Dumbledore." He waved the book at her. "I mean, who in their right mind would allow a kid to live under the stairs for the better part of a decade? Don't they have some sort of magical CPS?"

Rory smiled. "I'm sure they do."

He was already knee-deep into rant territory. Lorelai wondered how long he'd been saving this one up. "They had people checking up on him, wouldn't they notice all the clothes and the chores and the taped up glasses? I mean, c'mon, I know they're Muggles, but abuse is abuse."

"He has a much better time of it after this book, I promise," Rory reassured him and passed over _Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets_.

"It's still not right." Luke took the book with a thanks and set it on the cot next to his pillow. Lorelai hid her smile. "Bookworm," she sang under her breath, but he still heard her anyhow. He glared at her, and she blew him a kiss.

"Your outrage has been noted," Rory said with a nod.

Rory then coaxed Lorelai out of the room, claiming she needed coffee and needed it right away. They had passed several cafes on their way to the B&B, and they made their way toward one of them, chatting lightly about the trip and teasing Luke in absentia that he was so far into the climax of _Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone_ that he waved them off with some general muttering over poisoning their arteries, now be quiet so he could finish the book.

"You're going to turn him into another you," Lorelai mock complained as they accepted their go-cups of coffee and one with tea for Luke.

"I would like to think it's a good thing. Besides, imagine the look on Jess' face once he finds out that Luke's read Harry Potter." Rory laughed, but Lorelai stared soberly into her coffee.

"Hey," Rory said quietly. "I'm OK."

"He did a number on you, kid," Lorelai said. "He's not exactly my favorite person on the planet."

"Mom, he's never been your favorite person."

Lorelai huffed. "Yes, well it went from Archie Bunker grumbling to 'You killed my father, prepare to die' in my list of least favorite people on the planet. He does still at least rank below Mitzi Harwick."

"Who's that?"

"Someone I went to high school with." Someone who had tried tripping Lorelai on the stairs in the early days of her pregnancy, just to see what would happen. Lorelai had sacrificed her dignity and the already-banged up condition of her textbooks to grab onto the railing. She'd tripped down a couple of steps, but hadn't fallen, hadn't risked losing Rory. She never wanted her daughter to know how close she came to not existing because a stupid bitch had been jealous of Lorelai sleeping with Christopher.

Lost in her own thoughts, she almost missed Rory's next comment. "So I was thinking of mixing up the itinerary."

Lorelai frowned at her, then immediately laid her hand on Rory's forehead.

Rory screwed up her nose. "Mom?"

"Just checking. You wanted to deviate from your itinerary. I wanted to make sure you didn't come down with a fever or the bubonic plague."

Rory rolled her eyes. "We've been deviating from the itinerary ever since your debit card was stolen!"

"Potato, potahto." Lorelai absently waved her hand.

Rory sighed, then blocked Lorelai's path. She tugged her until they were just inside the front garden of the B&B, out of the way of onlookers. "Look. I'm 18, I'm not an idiot. Mom, please do me a favor. Go on a date, do whatever it is you do on a date, don't tell me the details. The two of you are driving me insane, and quite frankly, I really suck at this whole chaperone business. So, instead of all of us going out together tomorrow, I am going to look the other way and go tour some ruins or something you won't go near …"

"Like a bookstore."

"Like that." Rory nodded and saluted Lorelai with her coffee cup. "And you and Luke are going to go on a date and do whatever it is you want to do together on a date, and please make sure there is no evidence of said date activities for Rory to find later."

Lorelai just stared at her daughter, her heart growing at least three sizes like the Grinch's. She wanted to hug her, but it was an awkward thing while carrying two go-cups. Instead, she bestowed her with one of her happiest smiles and tried to ignore the anticipation curling in her gut. "You're a great kid. Seriously 10/10 would recommend."

Rory smirked. "I pride myself on my excellent reputation." She waggled her eyebrows suggestively."You know, if you two wanted to share the other bed together …"

Lorelai snorted. "As much as I'd love to, I don't think we're quite there yet. I know Luke won't do it if you're in the room, and I'm not sure I'm ready for that either."

"I know, I know," Rory said with an exaggerated sigh. "So much for my campaign to get my own bed."

"Is that what that was?"

"I was going to be magnanimous and take the cot. It's not like I wanted that entire huge king-sized bed that doesn't carry the lingering scent of 1,000 farts to myself."

"No, you weren't coveting that at all," Lorelai said gravely. "And I certainly just wasn't thinking of banishing you to the couch so I can have the bed all to myself."

"Mother, how could you?"

"What can I say, I had inspiration."

* * *

Lorelai waited until Rory was in the bathroom taking a shower before telling Luke of the change in plans.

"So, Rory's deviating from the itinerary," she said, sorting through her backpack and noticing with great dismay that the amount of dirty clothes far outweighed the amount of clean ones. She tried to remember the last time they did laundry. It was probably somewhere in the south of France. She pulled out what she was pretty sure was her last clean pair of panties and decided that in addition to date day, tomorrow would also be laundry day.

Already two chapters into _Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets_ , Luke peered over the top of the book at her with some surprise. He hadn't read this much since he'd been in middle school, and he realized he actually missed it. As he moved into high school and gotten more involved in athletics, reading seemed to just fall by the wayside as he pursued other interests. "She feeling OK?"

Lorelai pointed at him. "Same question I had! She's not sick. She thinks we need a day to ourselves."

"Yeah?" Surprised, he nearly chuckled at the amusement in Lorelai's eyes. "OK,' he finally said.

Lorelai pulled her pajamas out of her backpack and dropped them on the bed. She moved to the cot and nudged Luke until he shifted his legs enough for her to sit on the mattress. "That's it? OK? Run out of ideas there, Mr. Romance?"

His gaze flicked to the bathroom door, where the shower was still running, and his cheeks went flush. Of course he wouldn't say what he was thinking, what they both were thinking with Rory within earshot. "We should go out. To eat."

"Unless you've sneaked a full kitchen into that backpack, I assume that's a given," Lorelai said casually. She rubbed his leg. "Or … we could order room service. I can work on my really bad Italian and we can spend the day in the room eating whatever they bring us."

"No!" She stopped rubbing his leg at his yelp, and Luke put the book facedown on the floor next to the cot before levering himself into a sitting position. "I mean … that's good. I assume we're going to … well, I shouldn't _assume_."

Lorelai nudged his side. "You know what happens to people who assume."

Luke huffed at her. "But I wanna do this right."

"Oh, honey, you tossed traditional out the window two weeks ago."

"I want to do _this_ right," he insisted. "I just don't want to throw you on the bed like a Neanderthal the moment Rory walks out the door."

Lorelai's eyes sparkled, and Luke swore she was imagining all sorts of delicious, extremely dirty thoughts. They just happened to mirror his own, and he shifted uncomfortably. "I wouldn't mind that," she said, her voice dropping an octave.

"You deserve better," Luke muttered, sounding so much like a grumpy teddy bear that Lorelai pressed her cheek to his shoulder with a good deal of fondness.

"Dumping your girlfriend to fly across the world to bail me out? It's hard to top that in the romantic gesture department," she commented lightly.

The words were more effective in quashing Luke's growing arousal than thinking about the most disgusting thing possible while taking a cold shower. He shot out of bed, pressing his hand to his forehead. It had been two weeks, just 14 days since he'd left Nicole at the gate in Newark and took off to France, following his gut and the insane part of him that wanted to at least _try_. Two weeks of being swept up in jetlag, caught in the hurricane that was the Gilmore girls and ratcheted up to a category 5 because they were in Europe. Two weeks of belonging to a family, of actually being wanted and included in things. Ten days since he kissed Lorelai Gilmore and she kissed him back and made it very clear she wanted to keep kissing him. Five days since he all but made love to her on a riverbank, stopped only by Mother Nature. Fourteen days of not thinking, just _feeling_.

But it still didn't erase the fact that he was barely two weeks removed from his last relationship, and he never made a habit of hopping from bed to bed. It was distasteful to him and disrespectful to the person he was involved with. At least, even though he had walked away from Nicole, she didn't have to put up with him thinking about another woman while on the cruise.

"It's only been two weeks," he finally told Lorelai.

Luke expected a flippant remark ladened with some pop culture reference he didn't get in response. It was Lorelai's defense mechanism when things got real, and things were getting _really_ real. But her blue eyes were steady and everything about her was serious, and he knew this was as important to her as it was to him. _They_ were important to her. They had yet to discuss exactly what they wanted to become, but for the first time in all the years they'd known each other, it felt like they were standing on the same page.

"Look, did you roll out of her bed and straight into mine?" she asked quietly.

Confession time. Here's what he had. "No, I haven't touched her since April" he admitted.

He could see Lorelai doing the math in her head. "You mean you haven't … since the fire at the inn?"

Luke set his jaw and just stared at the wall.

"Let's go to brunch and see what happens," Lorelai said after a long, tense moment. "This … whatever it is. You and me. It isn't just a passing thing, is it?"

"It never was."

Lorelai nodded. "OK then. So, let's get dressed up, do brunch, then see what happens."

* * *

"Brunch? Is that what we're calling it?" Rory asked as she tucked her guidebook inside the small messenger she used for day trips.

Lorelai rolled her eyes. Through the wall, they could hear the shower going as Luke took his turn getting ready for the day. " _Yes_. Look, kid. We have some things to sort out, and we probably should do it before we do the mattress tango."

Rory shuddered. "I told you, no details!"

Lorelai stared at the wall dividing the bedroom from the bathroom. Rory finally decided that _Jane Eyre_ would be her companion for the day when her mother spoke up."Rory, would you be upset if we stayed friends?"

Rory put the book in her bag and studied her mother for a moment. She walked around the bed to lean against her. "Mom, I just want you both to be happy. I also hate to be the one to tell you this, considering I'm your 18-year-old daughter and it was obvious to me when I was 11, but you two were never just friends. Someone once told me that it's scary, but it's a good kind of scared. It's better than the alternative, isn't it?"

"Yeah, it is." Lorelai hugged her and sent her on her way.

Fifteen minutes later, Rory had a croissant in hand and was wandering outside the Forum, trying to decide if she wanted to visit now or wait until the afternoon. As much as Rory loved spending time with her mom, as much as she got a charge out of having Luke be a part of their little family unit, she loved exploring new places by herself. This trip to Europe was designed to make up for all the years Lorelai and Rory couldn't travel beyond Hartford, and really their road trip to Harvard had been their first crazy trip outside of Connecticut by themselves. It was nice to take in the city at her own pace, and she was itching to continue putting her new camera through its paces. It'd taken her the better part of the 10 days since Luke had given it to her to master the controls and take some test shots. But she was confident in the photos she was going to make now. Lane would be seriously impressed. Maybe she'd even send a few prints to Paris.

"Rory!"

Rory almost didn't hear it at first, lost in her own thoughts. It took her moment to register it as she heard her name called again, and her brow furrowed. It wasn't a masculine voice, so it wasn't Luke. And it wasn't her mom. There was no one else she knew that was going to be in Europe.

"Rory, wait!"

Startled, Rory looked over her shoulder at the sound of her name for the third time. Her jaw dropped. "Grandma!"


	9. Spider in the Web

**Author's note:** Any recognizable bits of dialogue come from seasons 5 and 6. There were a few scripts I was checking out for accuracy and a couple lines of dialogue were so priceless that I wanted to rework them into this chapter. For the sake of this story, I'm assuming Lorelai never slept with Alex in season 3.

* * *

 _Chapter 9: Spider in the Web_

For a moment, a very brief moment, a moment so minuscule that it flitted in and out of her mind in a nanosecond, Rory Gilmore considered running.

It was an absurd thought, really. Rory loved her grandparents. She had a much better relationship with her grandparents than her mother did. Grandparents who were supposed to be in Connecticut going about their daily lives - her grandpa with his new business and her grandma with the DAR. Emily Gilmore certainly wasn't suppose to be in Rome, walking up the sidewalk toward her with quick strides and a bright smile. She saw her grandfather several feet behind, possibly as equally absorbed with the Forum as she'd been seconds earlier.

But Rory was old enough to know that the golden part of their trip was at an end. Their European trip was about to make _Married … with Children_ look as innocuous as _Full House_. "Hi, Grandma," she said a bit shakily as Emily reached her.

"Richard? Richard, I've found Rory." Emily peeled off her sunglasses, grasping Rory's upper arms to study every inch of her, cataloguing things from stray hairs to new freckles. "Look at you, Europe agrees with you. A little too much sun though, have you been wearing a hat?"

"Not really," Rory admitted.

Richard reached their side, the camera around his neck a twin to Rory's own. And Luke's, she thought absently. "Ah, Rory! You look lovely. Europe really does agree with you."

"Hi, Grandpa. What are you doing here?" Rory asked, hoping her voice conveyed shock in a good way. "I thought you two were going to Cape Cod?"

"We are next month. Your grandfather decided to surprise me with a late anniversary trip to Rome," Emily explained, sparing a smile at her husband. His eyes twinkled as he smiled back at her. "We had your itinerary, so we decided to surprise you girls and treat you to a few days in a real hotel, not in one of those god-forsaken hostels your mother booked."

"Actually, we're staying in a really nice B&B," Rory clarified. "We're doing some research for the Dragonfly."

"Well, that's nice," Emily said a bit dismissively, as if the Nicolas Inn was the equivalent of a Motel 6. "Your mother can get some tips for her inn at the hotel we've booked as well. The Hotel de Russie is new, but it's gorgeous. The view is incredible, and there is a Turkish bath on-site. Isn't that exciting? I wanted to stay at the Roma, but it was completely booked, but this one is just as nice." She peered over Rory's shoulder, scanning the sidewalk. "Where's your mother?"

"Oh, well, Mom and I take a day in each city to explore by ourselves," Rory explained with a halfhearted wave, absently gesturing back in the direction of the inn.

Emily's brow furrowed. "By yourselves? But you're only 18."

"Which in some circles means I'm an adult," Rory gently teased.

Richard put an arm around Rory's shoulders in solidarity. "Rory's a very responsible young woman, and it's good for her to get some solo adventuring under her belt before she starts at Yale." He smiled down at her, chest puffed up with pride as it was every time he managed to get the words 'Rory' and 'Yale' in the same sentence. "What were your mother's plans for today?"

 _Most likely getting laid_ , Rory thought in a panic. "I ah … Probably just wandering around. She really didn't say. She also said something about taking a nap, doing some laundry. You know, things like that. I don't think it's worth bothering her. We can spend some time by ourselves, just the three of us."

"Nonsense. The sooner we get you girls into a proper hotel, the better," Emily insisted.

Richard pulled a flip phone out of his inner coat pocket. "Look, I even picked up an international cell phone. Works great here in Italy."

"I don't really want to bother her," Rory feebly protested as she accepted the phone.

"Rory," Emily said with growing exasperation, and she winced.

"OK, OK." Rory dug through her bag for the itinerary and located the B&B's number. With slightly shaking fingers, she punched it in and waited. "Room 2, please," she told the person who answered.

When the phone ranging several times, she prayed her mother and Luke were out. They were doing lunch. They were asleep. They had taken the phone off the hook. Anything that would delay her grandparents from discovering …

"Hello?" Luke's voice came on the line.

Rory spun away from Richard and Emily, catching herself before responding. "Hi, Mom! It's Rory!" she said brightly.

A moment of silence, and she could all but feel Luke's confusion. Thankfully, he was a quick study. "Rory? What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong, _Mom_. I ran into Grandma and Grandpa!"

On the other end of the line, Luke nearly dropped the phone. His gaze cut to the closed bathroom door, where Lorelai had gone in to finish getting ready for their brunch. Any and all plans for whatever talk they were going to have at brunch and perhaps finally putting the box of condoms he bought in Paris to use crumbled to ashes. "Your grandparents?"

"They came to Rome to surprise us, isn't that wonderful?" Rory kept up with the forced cheer. "We're headed back to the B&B now. I figured you'd want to speak to them in person."

"Is that Rory?" Lorelai sailed out of the bathroom, securing a clip in her hair as she did so.

"How far away are you?" Luke hissed into the phone, waving Lorelai off.

"Oh, we should be there in 15 minutes. It's a nice walk."

"We'll take a car there," he heard Emily's voice in the background. "It'll be five minutes at the most."

"Oh! Well. Five minutes! See you soon!" Rory snapped the phone shut and prayed.

Luke stared at the phone as the line went dead, wondering if his life was somehow a horrible joke. He absently dropped it back on the charger.

"What is it? What's wrong? Is Rory OK?"

He looked up into Lorelai's concerned face and rushed to reassure her. "No, no, Rory's fine." He swallowed. Hard. "Your parents are here."

Every bit of color drained out of Lorelai's face. "My parents? As in Emily and Richard Gilmore? Are _here_? In Rome?"

Luke nodded mutely, not quite sure what to say.

"Shit, shit, _shit_. I _knew_ this would happen!" Lorelai spun away from him, frantic. She paced the room, her movements jerky as the changes to their reality set in. "Everything was going too well. Is it too late to run away? I've always wanted to be Audrey Hepburn in _Roman Holiday_ , and you're awfully cute. Let's run away and go do silly things."

"You're not leaving Rory," Luke pointed out.

Lorelai heaved a sigh. "No, no I'm not. Am I a bad mom for being tempted to run though?"

"Probably as bad as I am for being tempted to run with you."

"Oh no." Lorelai turned back to him. She laced her fingers together and pulled them apart as she walked back to him. "See, you've been spared up to now. You have met casual acquaintance Richard and Emily. The people you just happen to see every so often because your daughter is a mutual friend, so they only see you at things such as birthday parties, graduations, emergency trips to the hospital when your dad had heart problems, things like that. But no, now you're meeting mother-of-the-girlfriend Richard and Emily, if that's where we're headed."

"I would like to think so," he muttered.

"But even more important than that, you're meeting the Richard and Emily Gilmore who are going to discover in a very short amount of time that their daughter and 18-year-old granddaughter have spent the past two weeks sharing close living quarters with a single man. Think about _that_."

Luke thought about it. And his life flashed in front of his eyes.

"It can't be that bad," Luke finally managed after a moment, surprised he sounded relatively normal.

Lorelai pressed a hand to his cheek. "That, people, is the sound of innocence right before it's sent through a paper shredder and torn to pieces by wild jackals."

Luke was a firm believer in facing problems head-on. Avoidance only made things worse. Granted, he wasn't always good at following his own advice, but considering Lorelai was within five heartbeats of a panic attack, he knew he had to be the rational one in this case. "Look, dealing with parents comes with the territory. Lorelai, you've wound up in the diner after almost every Friday night dinner you've had, complete with re-enactments that would put those Renaissance fair junkies to shame. I do know a little bit of what I'm getting myself into."

"No, no, no," Lorelai insisted. "You do _not_ know what you're getting yourself into with Emily and Richard Gilmore. No one ever does. It just flattens you like Bob the Builder on an out-of-control bulldozer. Come to think of it, you two do share the same fondness for flannel."

"You realize that the five-minute warning is almost up," he pointed out.

"I know, I know. Can I jump out a window?"

"No," he said firmly. "And I'm not going to jump out one either. They're gonna find out some time. If not now, then once we get back to Stars Hollow."

"My mother has spies everywhere," Lorelai agreed. She whirled around, put her hand on the doorknob. Then she spun back to him, back against the door. "Just one more thing before we go out."

"What?"

She yanked him to her, kissing him with every ounce of desire she had hoarded in the days since they'd last been alone. He was helpless to do anything but respond, pressing her against the door as they deepened the kiss. Whatever common sense and calmness that kept him grounded in the past few minutes drained away, replaced with heat and want and _more_. Kissing her was like stepping into the middle of a hurricane, staring up through the eye at the stars while emotions, lust, need, and love swirled around and around, threatening to consume him. It was too much and not enough at the same time, and he never thought he could _feel_ as much as he could when she was with him.

In many ways, it terrified him.

The need for oxygen put an end to the kiss, and they dragged in deep breaths.

"Are you OK?" Lorelai asked softly.

"I may need a few minutes," Luke confessed, knowing she could feel him pressed against her hip.

She rubbed his arm. "Just think of something disgusting."

"I'm trying." And failing. It was hard to do that when he was still pressed into her, reluctant to let her go.

"Well, think of Taylor in a bikini doing a waltz with Kirk in a panda suit." Lorelai glanced between their bodies. "That did it!"

"I think I'm gonna be sick," Luke groaned.

"No, honey, that's your reaction after seeing my parents. Or getting plastered, which I'm all in for that."

The endearment did more to calm his unease than anything. "Crazy lady," he said with a great deal of affection. Because he couldn't help himself, Luke kissed Lorelai's forehead. "Once more unto the breach?"

"Oh, very good! You're getting there!"

* * *

Lorelai had _plans_ for the day. Very specific plans that didn't involve any sightseeing beyond the restaurant they were going to have brunch at, then admiring the view from the gorgeous and comfortable king-sized bed in their room. Preferably her view of the ceiling from said bed, but there were other interesting views as well: the wall, the headboard. Then there were the scientific experiments she planned: testing the sturdiness of the door, the mattress, and that table in the corner.

But as much as her hormones were reminding her that the last person she slept with was Chris, and that was more than a year ago, she _had_ to know for damn sure that she and Luke wanted the same thing. Not now, but once they got back to Stars Hollow. Because this decision not only affected them and their friendship, but it touched on everything from Rory to their respective businesses to the core relationships they had with townspeople.

With Max, Lorelai hadn't thought this much. They had amazing sexual chemistry, and hindsight providing the proverbial 50-50 clarity, she had been ready to have an adult in her life and just wanted someone else around who could function in that manner. She never even considered Luke in that manner until the night they nearly kissed while hiding from the rest of the town behind the counter in the diner. But before she could start to sort through what it meant to her, Christopher had come back. Then Rachel. Then Max again. It felt like she and Luke were trapped in this cycle where they were spinning around on a ballroom floor, stretching out their hands, barely brushing fingertips before being spun away into a new dance with different partners. It was like the universe was keeping them from dancing together until suddenly he broke pattern and flew across the ocean. Then he was the only person left on Lorelai's dance card, and together they waltzed.

Right, that night binge-watching every version of _Pride and Prejudice_ that she and Rory could find was certainly paying off.

Lorelai's stomach already skittered with nerves as she dressed in one of the few date-appropriate outfits she brought with her: a pink and yellow sundress that was fairly modest. She considered going commando beneath it: a combination of hoarding that last pair of panties to stave off laundry another day and her odds of getting very, very lucky. Then, she decided to better play it safe and resigned herself to doing laundry later in the afternoon. Maybe she could bribe Rory into doing it. She curled her hair, applied makeup, and smiled when she heard the low rumble of Luke's voice on the phone. It reminded her that she needed to call Sookie and thank her for the care package that had arrived at the room earlier that morning, with a notecard containing the word "SQUEE!" in all caps. If her inner calendar was right, Luke's original plan to be back at the diner after the cruise was some time around, well … now. The nerves kicked up more. They needed to talk about that too. She wasn't ready for him to leave yet. She wondered if he wanted to go home.

Then she walked out of the bathroom in time to have the Hindenburg that was her life crash.

Lorelai led the way into the lobby. Maybe, if she stood between Luke and her parents, she could take the bullet meant for him. That's what love was, right?

Her eyes widened with shock. _Holy … ouch!_ She plowed into the arch that separated the front lobby from the short hall leading to their room.

"Lorelai?" Luke asked as she rubbed her nose. "Are you OK?"

"Ow," she muttered. Talk about getting hit in the face with realization.

She felt his hand on her back, absently rubbing it. "Nope, didn't pull a Geraldo Rivera there."

Luke's eyebrow arched in that _I haven't a clue what you're talking about_ manner, so Lorelai just grinned at him. She laced her fingers with his and squeezed, determined to be a unit. Start the way you were going to continue, yes? The lobby was blessedly empty, so she allowed herself time to study him. He'd dressed in one of the cruise outfits, but it was one she bought for him two years earlier. He even shaved, which if that didn't reveal his own motives regarding their aborted plans, nothing did. She worried her lip and rocked back and forth on her heels, wondering if maybe Rory perhaps hit upon giving her parents the wrong address on purpose.

She tugged on his hand. "Is it too late for us to get drunk?"

"One of us has to drive."

"From the room to the front lobby?"

"You just collided with that archway!" Luke steered Lorelai away from an errant ottoman before she could pull a magnificent impression of Dick Van Dyke.

"Hey, it hit me first!"

"One of us needs to keep our wits about us." He sighed. "Fine, you drink, I'll take five quick shots once we hit the door."

"Great. Now where do we get the alcohol?"

"By going past that black car that just pulled up to the curb."

Lorelai mentally cursed as she saw the hired car she presumed Rory and her parents were in. She sucked in a breath and opened the front door, deciding to take this fight out of the lobby. She wanted to at least spare her professional acquaintances the horror show that was about to happen.

Luke rubbed her back once more in that soothing manner designed to calm her down, and it was actually working. It was one of the things she discovered since their kiss in Paris, that he was far more touchy-feely than she gave him credit for. They always seemed to be touching in some casual manner - hand to the small of the back, laced fingers, things that were normal for a lot of people but screamed intimacy when it came to him.

Rory came through the gate first, panic writ over her face. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she hastily whispered to them.

"You didn't know, kid," Lorelai reassured her, the need to calm down her own child taking the edge off her own anxiety. "Besides," she said, resigned, "they probably would have wound up here at the inn and walked in one something highly mortifying to all of us."

"I knew you'd find a bright side while at the same time throughly scarring me for life," Rory said.

"Hey, if I wasn't the direct cause of your future therapy bills, I would be seriously failing on the job."

Richard held the gate open as Emily stepped through, and Lorelai felt her chest tighten the same way it always did as she approached the front door to her parents' house for Friday night dinner. She wondered if either Rory or Luke truly understood the anxiety that being around her parents caused her. All of her failures spun through her mind at once and she knew that as wonderful as the past two weeks had been, this would now be added to them. A growing part of her resented them for tainting this experience for her.

Emily peered over her sunglasses at the building. "Very authentic setting, Lorelai. I can see why you're wanting to do research here."

Lorelai couldn't decide if it was a compliment or an insult. She mentally girded herself for battle. She could either make an attempt at pleasantries or just dive in with both feet. Of course she chose the latter. "Mom, why are you here?"

Emily heaved patented sigh no. 3, which Lorelai put it at a 7 on the exasperation scale. "Really, Lorelai, it's a free world. There's nothing keeping your father and me from visiting Rome."

"So you suddenly had a yen to go globetrotting and just happened to pick Rome on this exact date at this exact time, which just happens to match the itinerary that Rory left you?"

"Stop being ridiculous, Lorelai," Emily scolded her. "Your father and I decided to visit Rome on a belated anniversary trip, and we wanted to surprise you girls. How could you possibly find fault with that?"

"Well, look at us! Surprised!" Lorelai mugged for her, then wondered how fast she could steer her parents back out of the garden. "You see us, we're alive, we're fine, we'll go grab some pizza somewhere after you give into your sudden urge to visit the Forum or the Pantheon. Hey, I wonder if they still do gladiator fights at the Colosseum?"

Her money had been on Emily noticing first, but when Lorelai saw her father grow still, brow furrowed as he studied Luke, that well of panic surged again. She knew the moment her father recognized him and that the jig was well and throughly up, and no blue box helmed by a British-speaking guy in a multicolored scarf would suddenly appear and whisk them all away to fight pepperpots in space.

"Well, I wasn't expecting to see you here," Richard said cordially, extending his hand to Luke.

Emily's head snapped to the right, now taking in the person hovering at Lorelai's shoulder. "What are _you_ doing here?"

"Mr. Gilmore. Mrs. Gilmore," Luke replied politely, accepting Richard's handshake.

"What's he doing here?" Emily demanded.

Lorelai had the perfect explanation on the tip of her tongue. "Um."

"How long have the two of you been dating?"

"Um …"

Emily gestured at Luke. "Lorelai, why didn't you tell us there was someone else going on this trip with you?"

The three of them spoke up at once.

"It wasn't exactly planned!" Lorelai said as Rory added, "He surprised us in Paris!" and Luke replied, "They were in trouble, and I just helped them out."

"Will the three of you just speak one at a time?" Emily asked with growing impatience.

"Trouble?" Richard asked, focusing on what Luke said. "What kind of trouble?"

"Dad," Lorelai said, "I'm surprised you could understand any of that."

"Lorelai, I am speaking with your friend here," Richard said, turning his full attention to Luke. "What trouble were the girls in that necessitated you flying all the way from Connecticut?"

Emily zeroed in on her daughter. "Lorelai, when you have a gentleman friend of significance, it's only proper that you introduce him to your mother before he accompanies you and your teenage daughter to Europe."

"You've met Luke before. He was at my graduation," Rory reminded her.

Lorelai saw movement behind the windows of the inn and she knew what was going on - the same thing her own staff would be doing if a reality show was unfolding live on its doorstep. She used every ounce of self control not to further bait her mother at the moment. The last thing she wanted was to be the subject of further gossip, especially if she wanted to maintain professional ties with this inn. She took several deep breaths before deciding it was safe enough to talk in a normal voice.

"Maybe there's a better place to do this other than right here, Mom," she suggested.

Emily took a quick glance around the garden and also spotted the curious staff gathered at the window. "Fine, we'll go to your room."

"No!" Lorelai, Luke, and Rory yelled at once.

Emily reared back a bit with surprise. "What? Surely there's enough room in there for all of us."

"They're cleaning it," Lorelai blurted.

"What about your room?" Emily asked Luke.

"They're cleaning it too," Lorelai interjected before he was forced to lie. Whatever she could to preserve what bit of his soul remained before her parents decided it was a nummy snack. Besides, she had far more experience lying to them than he did.

"How do you know that?" Emily asked, her eyes narrowing with suspicion.

"Staying in the same inn, Mom."

"Why don't we all go have a meal like civilized people?" Richard suggested. "Then, we can discuss this situation rationally."

* * *

"Welcome to your first Friday night dinner," Rory whispered to Luke as Lorelai signaled for her fourth mimosa. "The setting's different, and it's the middle of the day, but the ambience is the same."

"Is it like this every time?" he whispered back, his eyes following the fighting between Lorelai and her parents like it was Wimbledon. "I thought your mom was exaggerating."

"Mom's a bit prone to dramatics …"

"… A _bit_ prone?"

Rory snickered. "But in this case, not so much." She patted his arm. "How are you holding up?"

They wound up at the restaurant where Luke and Lorelai had planned their brunch, crowded around a circular table. Rory and Lorelai had immediately flanked Luke upon entering the restaurant, refusing to let him sit anywhere but between the two of them. It was another layer of bizarre to add onto an utterly surreal day, but he appreciated the show of solidarity from the girls. It wasn't the first time they'd done something like that on the trip. Luke prided himself on how well he knew the Gilmore girls, but discovering they knew him just as well came completely out of left field. Every time one of them went out for coffee, they returned with a go-cup of tea among their bounties. Somewhere, somehow they tracked down fresh fruits and vegetables to go with their candy haul. Every place they decided to eat had at least one thing he liked. And while he got a healthy amount of ribbing for his diet, he never felt like he was a burden on them. It was all sorts of strange, but nice.

"I'm OK," he told Rory.

"Don't worry, Mom's trying to think of an escape plan," Rory reassured him.

"How can you tell?"

Rory nodded at Lorelai. "Look at the set of her mouth as she's drinking that mimosa. That is Mom in escape-plan mode."

"It's not that bad, Rory."

Rory patted Luke's arm. "Oh, you sweet summer child. There. There, you see the flick of the eyes? Very good, very good. She's going to sacrifice herself so the two of us can make an escape."

Luke squinted at Lorelai. She was almost through that fourth mimosa, and her face was taunt with stress, but otherwise she wasn't acting out of character. "You can tell that from the flick of her eyes?"

"Not just that. See how she has her fork and knife arranged at 10 and 2 on her plate? And how the toast is perfectly bitten into the shape of a C? Right, so I am going to get horrible cramps and you're going to take me back to the inn so I can get some medicine."

Luke just stared at Rory. "You got that from utensil placement?"

"Mom and I have developed an intricate system over the years."

"The CIA's clearly missing out by not hiring the two of you."

"OK, so I'm going to move …"

"Rory." Luke grabbed her arm before she could go into full fake cramp mode. "I'm not going to leave your mom like this. It's not right. I'm the reason why she's having to go through this, so I'm staying here."

"Actually, if you really want to get technical, I'm the reason thanks to the whole pregnant at 16 thing, but …"

"You could have called us." Emily's voice cut through their whispered conversation. "Why didn't you call us?"

"To prevent the exact thing that's happening right now where you're ganging up on me and treating me like I'm 15 again!" Lorelai replied. "Look, I wasn't hurt, I called Luke, he lent us the money, and we're fine!"

"He clearly felt the need to deliver the money in person." Emily's full attention now turned to him, and Luke's stomach sank. He stared down at his plate, not quite sure what it was he even ordered to begin with. It had lots of vegetables, some pita bread, some hummus. He'd taken maybe two bites out of it.

"I don't understand why Western Union couldn't have sufficed," Emily continued. "It's not like you were just standing in an airport looking at a departure board and suddenly decided to fly to Europe, did you?"

"Haha, funny story," Lorelai started, but Emily silenced her with a searing glare.

"I want to hear it from _him_ ," she retorted.

"He has a name," Luke muttered in the general direction of his plate, missing Lorelai's look of approval at his smartass remark. He sighed and finally met Emily's gaze, then Richard's. "Look, I just wanted to make sure they were safe."

"And that's it? You closed your place of business-," Emily started to say.

"It's not closed."

Emily sighed. "Fine, left it in the hands of an underling-"

"I trust Caesar completely," Luke replied through gritted teeth, insulted on his behalf.

"To fly half way across the world just to make sure Lorelai and Rory were _safe_?"

"Isn't that exactly what the two of you are doing?" Luke shot back.

Emily swallowed, opened her mouth as if prepping another retort, then reached for her water glass.

Luke sat back, a bit stunned that he might, just might have outwitted Emily Gilmore. The shock on Lorelai and Rory's faces seemed to back that up.

As if to acknowledge the end of round 1, Richard waved the server over for the bill. "Why don't we get in a bit of sightseeing this afternoon? That will be all five of us, do I make myself clear?"


	10. A Day in the Strife

I'm sorry for the delay in this chapter! I was in NYC (I saw "Hamilton"!) then Seattle at Emerald City Comicon, so I wasn't able to return to this story until I got back home. Unfortunately, it also coincided with this being the hardest chapter in the story to write, so this took a bit longer than I expected. The good news: this story is almost done, and it'll not have just one but two sequels.

I'm also raising the rating in this story as of this chapter. I've been torn between a T and an M-rating for what happens next, but I'm going to play it on the safe side and raise the rating.

Huge, huge thanks to Meags09, who helped me wrangle this mess of a chapter into coherency.

* * *

 _Chapter 10: A Day in the Strife_

The next few hours ranked among the most bizarre in Lorelai's life, and considering she'd witnessed the times Kirk decided to mix a 5-year-old bottle of Crystal Pepsi with Kix and announced he was going to write a book about all the things you could do on top of a dining room table, that was saying something.

Really, things were going about how she expected with her mother. It was the Great Spa Day of 2002 all over again. Emily kept up a stream of running commentary about any and every thing as they clomped from one historic site to another. A good bit of it was some sort of critical jab: other tourists, the deterioration of the sites, Italians themselves, Lorelai, Lorelai, oh and Lorelai. She very pointedly did not mention Luke at all, which unnerved Lorelai more than anything. The lack of commentary meant that her mother was stewing, and when Emily came back for round 2, it was always with a bigger punch.

It hardly seemed that it was just a few hours ago that it was her, Rory, and Luke on their own, and the contrast was jarring. The three of them spent the majority of their time together, trying to cram in as much as possible. They spent their days hunched over Rory's guidebooks or going where locals suggested, abandoning the beaten path altogether. But no, not sightseeing with her parents. There was an agenda far more rigid that Rory's itinerary, and they were sticking to it.

Emily's commentary got so incessant that Lorelai made an excuse to find a bathroom and purposefully separated from her family just long enough to find her center, or at least calm down to the point where she was less likely to commit matricide.

She stepped out of the public restroom to find that the already thick crowds had swarmed even more, all clustered around a slow-moving vehicle with a familiar-looking bubble on top and a short man clad in white inside.

Maybe she could at least touch the hem of his robes.

It took every ounce of Lorelai's flirting ability to keep herself from getting arrested, and she dashed back through the crowd hoping that no one had noticed her little escapade. She stopped long enough to grab two coffees from a cart, one for her and one for Rory.

"Ah, there you are, Lorelai," Richard said, as Lorelai threaded her way through the crowd.

"How's the camera?" she asked, nodding to the Canon he held in his hands.

"Slowly getting there," he admitted. "I can at least take pictures without them being completely out of focus."

Emily turned to Lorelai, peering over the rim of her sunglasses. "Where on earth did you go?"

"Told you, bathroom. Here, kid." Lorelai passed off one of the coffees.

"Bless you," Rory said, immediately gulping down a sip of heaven - or the closest thing they could get to it outside of their hotel room, since Luke refused to bring the portable coffee supplies with him when they went sightseeing.

"That was quite a long time to be gone to the bathroom," Emily observed.

"We're not talking about this, Mom," Lorelai muttered and turned away to focus on the view of St. Peter's Basilica. Instead, she found herself staring up at Luke, who giving her his patented look of amusement and exasperation. She suspected he invented it especially for her.

"What?" she asked.

He leaned in toward her, and she caught a whiff of the cologne he'd splashed on that morning. Another cruel reminder that the only place they'd been planning to tour that day was each other's bodies. She nearly whimpered.

He whispered in her ear so her mother couldn't hear. "The pope, huh?"

"How did you …"

Luke tapped Rory's camera, which had somehow been passed over to him while she was gone. His fingers drummed along the zoom lens especially. Lorelai huffed, realizing Rory must have asked him to take pictures of the popemobile going through the area. It was a good thing that her father had been too busy fussing with his own camera to even attempt the same shots.

"I was about to go down there when you saved yourself," he said. "Now, behave."

She stuck her tongue at him.

The afternoon continued in its weirdness, with Lorelai more often than not at loose ends because for some strange reason, her father had found common ground with Luke. Or, more specifically, their cameras. The two of them, along with Rory, kept up a discussion about aperture and focal lengths, which somehow evolved into observations on the architecture around them. Lorelai absently wondered at one point, remembering Luke's fascination with Chilton, if he had wanted to be an architect before life got in the way.

They made it through dinner before the battle resumed, the discussion carefully threaded around what they saw in the city that day. They made it back to the hotel where Richard and Emily were staying, Richard eager to show off the view from their balcony. Lorelai highly doubted it matched the one they'd had in Paris at the hostel, but that particular view would always hold a special place in her memory.

She only had enough time to glimpse flowers through the open balcony door when her mother spoke up.

"Lorelai, we need to talk," Emily said, then proceeded to veer off into one of the bedrooms without bothering to see if she would follow.

 _And here we go._ Lorelai scanned the room for the drinks cart, spotting a bar on the back wall. She dashed over to it, pulling open the mini-fridge to see a bottle of wine chilling. Perfect. She grabbed it.

"Lorelai, we don't have time for that," Emily said.

She gave the much-needed alcohol a forlorn look, then shot that same look at Rory and Luke, who were carefully staying out of the way. The two glanced at each other, and some sort of silent communication passed between them. Rory jerked her head at the bedroom, mouthing, "Want us in there?" Lorelai shook her head and left the wine sitting out. No, she would go do the falling on the sword this go around. She was quite used to it.

"Do you realize how inappropriate this situation is?" Emily demanded to know as soon as Lorelai stepped in the room, pulling the door ajar.

"Gee, Mom, it's not like Rory and I decided to adopt Ted Bundy off the street and keep him in our hotel room."

Emily frowned. "That's not even funny, Lorelai. Do you have any idea of this man's history?"

Lorelai gaped at her. "Are you crazy? Rory and I have known Luke for seven years! That's a whole cycle of mirror bad luck there, not to mention the entire run of _JAG_ so far."

"That doesn't say a thing."

"He's kind," Lorelai said, ticking off everything good she could think of about him. "He's grumpy, but he lets me slide on the food tabs. He doesn't think I know, but I do. He's literally kept the roof from falling down around mine and Rory's heads, and need I remind you that he flew across the ocean to give us money?"

"Lorelai, we're just worried about your safety. What would it say about me and your father if we ignored the fact that a strange man is in the same room as you and Rory on your trip?"

The thing that was absolutely galling was that if Lorelai had walked in on a similar situation with Rory, she would be questioning the same thing. Still. "Mom, he's not a _strange man_! You know that very well!"

"Yes, and I know the way you look at him and he looks at you." Emily sighed with no small amount of regret. "You and Christopher -"

"Aren't a thing! He made his choice, Mom, he married Sherry. He has a kid with her."

"Well, it should have been you!" Emily shot at her.

"But it wasn't!" Lorelai protested. "We had this exact same argument months ago! It's not me, it's never going to be me. And you get no say in who I get to spend time with! The only person who gets a say is Rory, because she's my kid and she comes first. Always."

"If Rory really came first, you'd tell him to go home."

"And if Rory wanted Luke to go home, she'd say so! But she didn't. She's been fine with all of this. You saw them together. Luke's been in her life nearly every single day for the past seven years, Mom. You don't know even a fraction of the things he's done for her."

"Lorelai, he is a _diner_ owner," Emily pressed on. "He's uneducated and nowhere near a proper stepfather for Rory."

"Rory and I are the ones who decide that, not you! Besides, when did you start caring about _that?_ You were practically throwing us together at Rory's 16th birthday party!"

Her mother all but ignored her. "He's completely unsuitable for you! If not Christopher, then at least choose someone respectable, like that Chilton teacher you were engaged to. He was at _least_ educated."

"Again, not your decision!"

"You are capable of greatness, Lorelai! You have always been capable of that, and you threw that all away once and took Rory with you as well. Now Rory's going to Yale and you're starting your own business! I don't want you with anyone that's going to hold you back."

Tears pressed in, and for a horrible moment, she was worried she might start to cry. "Luke doesn't hold me back, Mom. He's the one that keeps telling me to fly."

"Mom."

Lorelai whipped around, and her heart leaped into her throat. Rory and her father hovered near the door, witnesses to the entire scene. Granted, with the sound of their voices, half of Rome probably got an earful of the latest Gilmore drama. But one member of their group was conspicuously absent.

"How much did you hear?"

"Most of it." Rory hedged for a moment. Then she sighed. "All of it."

"And …" She couldn't bring herself to fully ask, and her stomach lurched.

Rory nodded toward the sitting room. "Right after the comment about Mr. Medina."

Lorelai didn't wait for Rory to finish her sentence. She ran into the sitting room and saw the door to the balcony was ajar.

Emily started to follow. "Lorelai, we have not finished our discussion yet."

"Grandma." Rory stepped in front of her, cutting off her pursuit of Lorelai.

"Rory," Emily said. She started to move around Rory, but she shifted until she blocked her grandmother once more.

"I think we've done enough," Rory said.

Emily sighed in exasperation. "I want what's best for your mother."

"So do I. I've wanted them to get together since I was a kid."

"Rory," Richard said gently.

"I didn't want Mom to date him unless she was serious about it, because I don't want to lose him either. But what you're doing, Grandma, that's what's going to do it. And if you lose him, you lose Mom." Rory let her own fury show now. "And you lose me."

—

Luke wanted to go home.

He stared blankly over the balcony at Rome, absently thinking it wasn't anywhere near as magical as the view from atop the hostel in Paris. He leaned on the wide stone railing and buried his face in his hands.

Everything in him told him to just go, that he truly wasn't wanted here. It warred with the memory of Lorelai asking him to stay in Paris with her and Rory, of the warmth and disbelief that filled him because they had actually wanted him. The days that followed seemed like they came from another life, one that definitely wasn't his, and reality had slammed back into him in the form of Emily and Richard Gilmore. Of course it was too good to last. Wasn't that the pattern his life took? Little snatches of paradise before reality smacked him out of a dream world.

Emily especially reminded him of Nicole's parents, and he remembered how he'd floundered around them, of their disapproval because they couldn't see past his profession to _him_. He wasn't ashamed of anything. His parents had been good, honest people. He'd built his own business from the ground up. He had money in the bank and, thanks to Lorelai, even some real estate investments. But that clearly wasn't good enough for people like the Gilmores. Luke had no doubt in his mind that had it been Christopher who showed up in Paris, Emily would be writing the wedding invitations right now.

He heard the balcony door slide open, caught the whiff of floral perfume, as light footsteps crossed to his side. Lorelai leaned on the railing next to him. With a sigh, Luke let his hands drop.

"So …" She worried her bottom lip between her teeth.

"I had to get out of there."

"You didn't get very far."

He waved at the city sprawling before them. "I'm halfway across the world from home where nothing is in my language. I didn't have a lot of options." He closed his eyes, unable to look at her. "I think I should go home."

"What?" He flinched at the shock and hurt in her voice. "You don't need to do that."

"Clearly, I'm in the way by staying. Don't want me to go all Ted Bundy on you, do we?" Luke asked, punctuating every word with bitterness, letting her know that he'd heard everything. At least until the point he couldn't take anymore and he just had to go.

For the first time, he let himself take her in. The breeze blew tendrils of her hair around her face, and she looked about two seconds from breaking down. She was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. "This is just going to happen again, isn't it? Your mother has made it very clear how she feels about anyone with you who isn't Christopher."

"Who isn't even a factor!" Lorelai shot back.

"But he was just a year ago," Luke reminded her. "He came to Sookie's wedding, and we both know what happened then. What if his marriage ends? I don't want to be a bargain basement stand-in while you're holding out hope for Christopher or waiting for someone better to come along!"

The pain in her eyes was replaced with anger, and she stepped toward him, so close now that her hair tickled his nose. "Do you think so little of me that I would do that to you?"

"Well your track record isn't particularly good in that area now, is it?"

Luke regretted the words the moment he said them, eyes widening in horror as she took a step back in reflex, as if he slapped her. "Look, I didn't mean to-"

"Yes, you did." Lorelai turned away from him, hugging herself as if to ward off any further blows.

"No, I-"

"You wouldn't have said it if you didn't think it at one point," she bit out.

Everything Luke ever wanted to tell her caught in his throat. About how Rachel urged him to tell her how he felt. About standing there as her best friend, falling more and more in love with her and fighting it every step of the way, determined not to be one of those guys who pressured her into returning his feelings. It was why he couldn't stand Max, couldn't stand Christopher. He thought about how he'd wanted to scream in frustration at her when he'd realized she was asking him to teach her how to fish so she could date someone else. He thought about how he'd looked in the mirror and knew every god-damn day that he wasn't good enough for her. He didn't have the wealth or the connections or the storied last name or anything that her parents desired. He just loved her. Loved Rory.

Lorelai's breath hitched as she sighed. "I am _so_ tired of being judged for the people I choose to date. Do you know why I never dated very long when Rory was younger? Specifically the last seven years? Reason no. 1 was Rory. Guys see a kid in the picture, and they exit as fast as they possible. Or they think you're easy, and I'm not. Do you want to know the last time I had sex before Max? Do you? I think El Niño had gone through a cycle or two at least."

She spun back to him, all anger and fury. "And the other reason? It's all you, pal. Because somehow people can't see a man and a woman in the same room together and think they can just be friends. Do you know why I didn't marry Max?"

He was terrified to hear the answer.

"I mean there were a lot of things," Lorelai continued, not waiting for his response. "I didn't want to wear the dress. I didn't want him sleeping in my bed, making decisions about Rory. But then you came to the house, and you had that chuppah, and you actually said something real about marriage and it made me realize it wasn't going to happen with Max. I didn't think at the time that it could be you instead, maybe it was there subconsciously. But I knew it wasn't him and I stopped the wedding."

The words were a punch to the gut, and Luke found himself leaning back against the balcony for support. "You stopped your wedding because of me?"

Her hands fluttered as she tried to make her point. "I stopped my wedding because of _me_. You just made me realize that I want more." She let her hands drop. "And I want it with you."

He simply broke. Every bit of self-control he'd hoarded over the years crumbled as he caught her face between his hands and kissed her. He'd thought the kiss in Paris had been heady, that the stolen afternoon in Pisa was intense, but this put them all to shame. Everything he wanted to tell her was put into that kiss, and common sense told him he actually needed to give her the words, that they needed to finish talking this all out.

But words had never been his strength. She could find them so easily, but they eluded him at such a level that it left him paralyzed for years when it came to even asking her on a date. But this … _this._ He'd loved her for so long, wanted her so much, that his sanity simply fled. He never wanted anything so badly as he wanted her to be by his side. Did she have any clue what this meant to him, to know that she wanted _him_?

He backed them up a few steps, keeping his mouth on hers as he pressed her into the stone railing, letting her feel exactly how much he wanted her. He'd never changed out of the date clothes, and the trousers didn't hide a damn thing. His fingers toyed with the hem of her dress, pushing the cotton material up just enough to brush the edges of her underwear. Aroused as hell and slightly overwhelmed, he instead moved his hand from the danger zone and skimmed it over her hip, trace the dip in her waist, just to the curve of her breast.

She pulled away from the kiss as his hand closed over her breast, and they stood, his brow resting against hers, trying to catch their breaths. For a brief moment, he considered lifting her onto that stone railing and … he dropped his head to her shoulder, trying to compose himself further. No, not with Rory just a few feet away, not to mention the elder Gilmores. Someone had to be a mature adult, but for once he wished it wasn't him.

Thankfully, she wrestled the decision from him. She kissed his temple, threading her fingers through the curls at the base of his neck before reluctantly pulling away. "We can't do this here," she said.

"No," he agreed. "Not with your family right inside."

She chuckled. "No, not even that. It _was_ that, but not just that. Me and balconies … let's say it's a cycle I don't exactly want to repeat."

Lorelai walked over to the railing, absently pulling her disheveled curls back with a band she had in her pocket as she studied the ground below.

"We are not climbing over the railing," Luke informed her.

"It's not that far of a jump. You'd catch me, wouldn't you?"

He rolled his eyes and instead all but pushed her back into the suite. The suspiciously quiet suite where no one was waiting to dress them down or call them out over storming out of the room. Instead, a note was propped next to Lorelai's purse, and she picked it up.

 _"Mom— I convinced Grandma and Grandpa into getting dessert and doing a little nighttime sightseeing while you two were "talking." Please don't kill each other, I'm rather fond of you both. I think I'll bunk here tonight. Don't let my sacrifice go to waste. Rory."_

She laughed and showed it to him. "I have _the_ best kid."

"Not arguing with you there."

They left the hotel, arm in arm as they walked out into the balmy summer evening. She rested her head on his shoulder as they lazily walked to the end of the street, where it intersected with a larger, busier road. They stood in silence, watching the traffic meander its way down the road.

"So, given how our previous conversation went, neither of us have a clue how to get back to the B&B, do we?" Lorelai observed.

Luke squeezed her closer. "Nope."

"Well, we'll figure it out."

"We usually do."

She suddenly jerked upright. "Oh, go right!"

His gaze tracked where she pointed. "What? Is that the way?"

"No clue. But there's a café, and it's open, and I want coffee sans lecture."

Luke was in too good of a mood to lecture her anyhow. Lorelai could ask him to break the Guinness record for biggest ice cream sundae and he'd figure out a way to do it. Because it involved crossing the street, they reluctantly parted but kept their hands linked as they dashed through traffic and into the café where she got an iced coffee.

"We never finished having that conversation." She took a long sip, closing her eyes in pleasure as she enjoyed the drink. "So what are we now?"

Luke shrugged, hating how high school this all felt. "We're a couple."

Lorelai cracked an eye open. "A couple of what?"

He smirked at her. "Exactly."

She grinned.


	11. And the Sky Full of Stars

One more chapter to go after this one!

* * *

 _Chapter 11: And the Sky Full of Stars_

By the time they got back to the inn, Luke's stomach was so twisted in nervous anticipation that he really hoped Lorelai hadn't noticed that his hands were shaking slightly as he unlocked the door. Next to him, she shifted from foot to foot, eager to get inside the room.

He wish he could say it was because she was that impatient about getting naked.

"Sorry," Lorelai yelped and dashed past him to the bathroom.

"That's what you get for drinking two iced coffees," Luke scolded without much heat as he latched the door behind him. Exhaling slowly, he wandered around the room. Housekeeping had been by to do a turndown, and all of their luggage was neatly stacked against the far wall. Some of Rory's items had shifted, indicating that she had stopped by with her grandparents at some point to grab clothes. He toed off his shoes, then sat on the edge of the bed.

His subconscious had gleefully spent countless nights imagining how this would be between the two of them. Lorelai confessed a few days earlier that Sookie had envisioned them going full _Bull Durham_ in the diner, and that pretty much aligned with at least half of Luke's fantasies. But then common sense took over. As much as he _enjoyed_ that particular vision, the health inspector wouldn't be thrilled with the reality.

Luke clasped and unclasped his hands. He needed to be doing _something_ , but considering they were in a hotel room, there wasn't much for him to do except be alone with his thoughts. He was too jumpy to even consider the book he'd left behind earlier that day. He'd heard the toilet flush a few minutes earlier, but she still hadn't emerged from the bathroom. He frowned, hoping she was OK. Any other time, he wouldn't think twice of knocking and asking, but he really didn't want to stumble upon something that would embarrass the both of them.

He laid down on the bed and closed his eyes, allowing his mind to drift as he waited for Lorelai to come out of the bathroom. After days of narrow dormitory bunks and cots, the bed felt amazing. Luke added getting a larger bed for his apartment on his mental to-do list, conceding that battle to Lorelai. He probably needed to get some music CDs she enjoyed too, but no guys in pirate costumes. He drew the line there. He was going to have to lay in a supply of junk food, wasn't he? Jeez. Maybe he could at least find organic candy and stuff with 100 percent fruit in it and …

There wasn't any form to the dream. It was just heat and the heady, addictive pressure of arousal. It swirled around him, enveloping him like a hug. His lips were moving, but Luke wasn't sure if he was talking or kissing someone. He really hoped he was kissing _someone_ , because he didn't want to relive the Great Lorelai Dream Fiasco of 2002 when he had woken up to find himself making out with his pillow. He hadn't been able to look Lorelai in the eye for days after that.

Fingers danced over his chest, teasing the buttons of his shirt open to reveal the thin T-shirt beneath. His own fingers lifted, buried themselves in a mass of softness as the kiss went on and on. A questing hand closed over him, hot and hard through his trousers, and he woke. The dream dissolved into a blissful reality, and thank God, it didn't involve a pillow. Everything he ever wanted, packaged in a brunette wonder with piercing blue eyes, was smiling down at him.

"Worn out?" Lorelai teased.

"No. No, I'm good." Luke was immensely grateful that his voice hadn't skated up an octave or two. He ran his hand down the curve of her back, encountering satin instead of the sundress she'd worn earlier in the day. So _that_ was why she'd taken so long in the bathroom. "When did you get this? Didn't think it was on the approval list."

"Let's just say I did a little shopping when I was by myself in Paris." She sat up just enough to show off the negligee. It was dark blue and black lace and matched the color of her eyes. It would also be on the floor very shortly, he vowed.

He pulled her back to him, kissing the underside of her jaw and running his lips down the side of her neck. His hand skimmed under the hem of the negligee, and his heart nearly stopped at the feel of bare skin beneath his fingers. He pressed his face into her shoulder, breathing hard as his fingers trailed up her inner thigh, between her legs, and … there was wet and heat, and god, she wanted him as much as badly as he desired her.

She wriggled, and for a moment he wondered if he was hurting her. But then her hips bucked, and she squirmed closer as he turned his attention to rubbing gentle circles over her clit. He lightly bit her skin when she whined his name and slipped a finger inside her, still rubbing her with his thumb. He used her hitching moans as a guide on discovering how she liked to be touched.

When he fantasized about the two of them together, he reckoned by and large that their first time would be fast and rough, slaking the tension that had existed between them for seven years. Nothing his mind conjured could compare with the reality as he explored her as if this was his only chance, as her hands roamed over him, pushing up his T-shirt so she could lean forward and close her lips over his nipples. He knew they would eventually grow desperate for release, but this slow build was unexpected and captivating all on its own.

She suddenly pulled away, hands scrabbling at his belt. He sat up just long enough to pull off his shirts as she got the buckle open, the zip down and … he collapsed back to the mattress with a moan as her hand closed around him. She explored him every bit as throughly as he had her, until his hands fisted the duvet and he was fighting a losing battle against self control. He bit his lip, hard, because he was seconds away from begging her to replace her hand with her mouth.

Then, thank every deity there ever was, he heard the rip of a condom packet. Then it was on him. Then _she_ was straddling him, sinking down onto him, and … and … _god._

For all the fantasies he'd had, nothing compared with the rather messy and noisy reality.

The only coherent thought Luke could manage as Lorelai nestled against his side, as his heart started to calm, was just how much he loved her.

"Wow," Lorelai whispered.

Yeah. Wow.

She traced her finger over his chest, and he remembered that they hadn't managed to undress all the way. The negligee was bunched around her waist, and what remained of his clothes had been shoved down around his knees. Careful not to dislodge her, he managed to push them down far enough to where he could kick them off. She followed suit by whipping off the negligee before settling herself back against him.

"I've had some good sex in my time. Some really good sex," Lorelai said after a few minutes of contented silence.

Comparisons with other sexual experiences wasn't exactly what Luke wanted to hear at that moment.

"But this is just … it's the cremé de la creme of sex. It was the sex to end all sex. That was mind-blowing, orbit-shattering, universe-rebooting sex."

OK, he didn't mind hearing that.

"You know, having sex with someone for the first time's supposed be all weird. You don't know where your hands go, you see all your flaws like you're standing naked on the Titanic's bow waiting to see if Jack is going to bother holding you up or not, but this was … the best sex I've ever had. And this is our first time. Our _first_. Which means it's only supposed to get better."

Luke had to agree.

"God, we're going to kill each other in bed, aren't we?"

He certainly hoped so.

"What're you thinking in there?"

He didn't think he could speak. So he tucked Lorelai beneath his chin, stroked her back, tried to remember how vocal cords functioned. It wasn't like he was that verbose to begin with. He wondered why his face felt a bit strange.

After a moment, Lorelai pushed herself up to stare down at him, a lock of hair of hanging down in her eyes. He pushed it back.

"Look at you. You don't do that nearly enough," she whispered.

"What's that?" Oh look, he did remember how to speak. This was a good thing.

"Smile."

Oh, that's why his face felt strange. He couldn't stop smiling.

* * *

Lorelai had no idea what time it was beyond the fact that sunlight was trailing across the ceiling, and her body was making its various demands known. She catalogued which ones were the most important, then shoved aside the duvet to go address the first of them.

While in the bathroom, she took the time to brush her teeth, mentally cataloguing the small bruises and love bites: souvenirs that would eventually fade, but she would never forget. There was the bruise on her hip where he pressed her into the balcony before they'd even gone back to the B&B. There was a proper hickey on the patch of skin where neck turned into shoulders, and she needed ice to help the swelling go down. Until then, she had a summer halter top that would effectively disguise it.

Rory's gift of a night with her grandparents had indeed been put to very good use.

She walked out of the bathroom to hear Luke on the phone, voice pitched low as he spoke with someone on the other end.

"Look, finish out the morning and close it down. Give you and Lane a break, you two deserve it. Just mark the full day on your cards and tomorrow too. Don't open it back up until Monday." In the semi-dark she saw him roll his eyes. "I don't care what Kirk says, he can just plaster himself to the window for the next … no, wait, Kirk is _not_ allowed to plaster himself to my window for the next 36 hours." He kneaded his forehead with his index finger and thumb. "If Taylor has any problems with it, he can just get over himself. It's my business, not his. Hey, thanks for doing all this. No, no I haven't decided yet, probably in the next day or two. I'll let you know. Thanks, Caesar."

Lorelai zeroed in on one sentence in particular. _I haven't decided yet._ There was no doubt that referred to his return to Connecticut, and with a bit of surprise, she realized exactly how much time had passed. She knew the cruise was originally going to last three weeks, as Rory once commented it was nearly half the length their own trip. It was just over two weeks since he arrived in Paris, on the second day of what was to be his own vacation. Everything in her wanted to scream at him not to go back yet. Not now, not when they were just starting to figure things out without the spotlight of Stars Hollow aimed down at them.

Lorelai dropped to the bed, leaning against Luke's shoulder as he disconnected the call. "I should call Sookie," she said, hoping her voice sounded more lighthearted than she felt. "She said the other day she needed to fax over some legal paperwork for the Dragonfly, and I should take care of it before we leave Rome." She worried her lip. "You need to go back."

He stiffened. "Yeah. I'm supposed to be back by Monday."

"I don't want you to go." The words spilled out without permission, and for a split second, Lorelai wished for the ability to yank them back and bury them deep where he couldn't see her vulnerability. It had to be the sex. Mind-blowing sex had a way of loosening her tongue, and the three rounds they'd done over the past few hours had created such a new definition of mind-blowing that she was tempted to pen a letter to Merriam-Webster.

He shifted, wrapping his arm around her, and she greedily accepted the comfort he was offering. "Lorelai …," Luke started to say.

The phone in his hand buzzed, and he handed it over. Patting Lorelai's knee, he pushed to his feet and gathered clean clothes. Absently, she watched the view (and what a fine view it was) as Luke headed to the bathroom before reluctantly answering the call.

"Hey, Mom," Rory said, and Lorelai was relieved it wasn't her mother. "Just wanted to let you know we're heading over there in the next half hour. Grandma and Grandpa want to do the whole lunch thing again. I wanted to give you a heads up so you're both wearing clothes."

Luke had left the bathroom door opened a crack, and Lorelai angled her head, trying to get a peek. She was forced to be satisfied with flashes of skin as he moved around inside. "I'd figure we'd give that naturist thing a try."

"Ew, Mom, no! Great, now I need to go find brain bleach to add to my morning coffee."

Lorelai smirked. "I hear it's the same word as _limburger_ in Italian."

Rory's gasp of indignation was most likely heard back in Stars Hollow. "We agreed _not_ to talk about that ever again, and I was ordering coffee with cream. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it." She fell silent a moment. "Is everything OK?"

"Yeah, kid, everything's fine." There was a lot she told her daughter, her best friend. Last night and this morning, however, was never going to be one of them. "This trip's just gone a lot faster than I thought."

"Tell me about it," Rory huffed. "There's a computer in the business center here, and I decided to check my email. I've got at least 10 from Yale all about freshman orientation and moving in once we get back. Lane emailed, she said hi and that the entire town is riveted to our postcards, and she claims that if you and Luke aren't officially dating by the time we get home that Miss Patty is planning to do something drastic."

"No worries there, continue," Lorelai said breezily, but doubt tugged at her. Despite everything, they hadn't actually talked about how things would change for them once they got back to Stars Hollow.

"Babette emailed and said the boxes we sent so far got there OK. How many are we up to?"

"I don't know. Four? Five? You're the one with the book fetish."

"Really?" Rory sounded skeptical. "I didn't think it was that much."

"Just remember, shipping this stuff is coming out of your college fund." Lorelai found herself picking at a loose thread on the duvet, the idea that sprang into her head while Luke had been on the phone gaining full form. "Rory, I was wondering-"

"Hang on, Mom." She heard a muffled sound as Rory placed her hand over the speaker and heard her talking to someone on her end. "OK, we're ready here. See you soon! What did you want to ask me?"

Lorelai sighed. "I'll do it when you get here. See you soon!"

"OK! Remember, _clothes_."

"Fine!"

* * *

Lunch was a very quiet affair, filled the same superficial talk as the night before. Lorelai was braced for another fight because there was no way that Emily was going to let her have the last word.

Rory, true to form, acted as the buffer between her grandparents and her mother, but was learning the fine art of making sure that they weren't excluding Luke. Richard was pleasant and engaging, easily chatting about cameras and books as Rory enthusiastically talked about her Harry Potter re-read and how she dragged Luke along with her.

"Well, had I known you were into the series, I would had brought you the latest book. It came out right after you left England," Richard told Rory.

"I know," Rory moaned. "I'm really trying hard not get spoiled, and I want to finish _Goblet of Fire_ again before reading _Order of the Phoenix_. Thankfully, I don't know any Italian, so I can't tell if people are talking about the latest fashions or discussing the effects of Fudge not believing Dumbledore is going to have on the Wizarding World." She shot Luke an apologetic glance. "Sorry. Slight spoilers."

"Rory has been trying to get me to read them for awhile, but I'm not sure they're my cup of tea," Richard admitted.

"I like sci-fi and fantasy," Luke admitted, and Lorelai snickered at her plate. "Nerd," she sang in a whisper. He pinched her thigh beneath the table. "Though it's not quite as heavy as the _Game of Thrones_ books."

"You read those?" Rory asked, impressed.

"Who's your favorite author?" she grilled him.

"Rory, don't be rude," Emily gently chided her.

"No, it's OK, Mrs. Gilmore." Luke mulled it over. "Not so much an author, but rather a book. Pat Frank's _Alas, Babylon_."

Richard's eyebrow lifted as he took a sip from his water glass. "Commendable choice," he murmured. "Read it when I was in university. Fascinating take on if atomic bombs had been dropped on the United States. You really should read it, Rory." For the first time, he turned his full attention to Luke. "Have you read Philip Dick's _The Man in the High Castle_?"

Huh, Lorelai thought. She thought a book had to be at least 100 years old for her father to have read it. The book talk instantly went over her head, and she found herself poking viciously at the salad that magically appeared on her plate without her permission at some point.

"Lorelai, I did not raise you to wield your fork like a dagger," Emily scolded.

Feeling petulant, Lorelai stabbed as much salad as she could with her fork and stuck the entire wad of lettuce in her mouth.

Rory excused herself once they walked back to the B&B so she could drop off her bag, leaving the adults together in the small parlor set aside for guests to use. Lorelai took several deep breaths and waited for round 3 to begin.

"Lorelai, I do not appreciate that you walked out of our discussion last night," Emily said once Rory was out of earshot.

And there it was. "The discussion was finished, Mom. You insulted my boy- you insulted Luke. What was I suppose to do, stand there and let you tar and feather him?" Lorelai prayed that none of them caught the slip-up.

"I thought for sure it would be the rack," Luke muttered, and Lorelai bit back a laugh.

She narrowed her eyes at her father, who had wandered to study the selection of books the inn had to offer its guests. "And what's your thoughts on this?"

Richard pulled down a copy of the _Iliad_. He flipped it open to the copyright page, then fished out his reading glasses. "Lorelai, you are a grown woman. You have made it absolutely clear that you have no regard for the advice your mother and I provide."

"Well, this is going just as well as yesterday, isn't it?" Lorelai huffed. "Nothing you two say is going to change the status quo."

"The past 24 hours have proven quite fruitful," Richard continued.

Confused, Lorelai looked from her mother to her father. Her mother's face had gone carefully blank, which unnerved Lorelai more than anything that had happened so far. Her father was still absorbed in the book. "Dad?"

"I was just thinking ahead is all." Richard closed the book and placed it back on the shelf.

"Look, we have two more days in Rome. Could we not spend it re-enacting the Punic Wars?" Lorelai asked.

"Well, it's clear that we won't be resolving this situation while we're here," Emily sighed.

Luke cleared his throat, and for the first time since they entered the parlor, he found three pairs of Gilmore eyes all focused on him. He was more than willing to let Lorelai fight her own battles. She was the strongest woman he'd never met. But he never let that stop him from saying what he wanted. No matter how polite he was, it wasn't going to change things.

He let the politeness mask fully drop. "With all due respect, Mrs. Gilmore, this is none of your business. It's my business. And her business." He pointed at Lorelai. "And Rory's business. But not yours."

Emily narrowed her eyes. "Has anyone told you that when you're with someone, you're also taking on her family?"

"Only, a time or two," Luke said lightly, thinking of when he told Jess the same thing.

She didn't say anything for a long time, and for a moment, it felt like no one was breathing. Lorelai drew in a breath and took the two steps needed to Luke's side. She laced her hand with his and squeezed tightly. Emily's gaze flicked to their linked hands, then back up to their stony faces.

"All right." Emily gave Luke a firm, sharp nod. "The first Friday after you get back, I'm expecting you at dinner. All three of you." She directed that last statement at Lorelai.

"OK," Lorelai replied, drawing out the sounds a bit.

"You will stop by our hotel before you leave?"

"Yeah, of course."

"Excellent," Richard said, putting the book he held back.

Emily and Richard left to say good-bye to Rory, leaving them a bit stunned and confused.

"I have to go, don't I?" Luke asked Lorelai.

"I'd offer to tell her that you decided to sub in for a Crash Test Dummy at the last second, but I don't think that's going to fly this time. Besides, you've already been through the initiation and the hazing within the first 24 hours, and without consuming any alcohol. I'm impressed and a bit worried for your sanity."

"I think your crazy has rubbed off on me." He leaned into her, their foreheads touching. "I caught it, you know."

"What?"

Luke kissed her, wrapping his arm around her waist. He drew her in, and her hands swept up to the cap he wore, knocking it off. This one they had picked up during their wanderings around Rome the day before, and Lorelai hated it as much as every other hat they had found on the trip.

"Going to murder that one too?" Luke murmured against her lips.

"Hate it. Too green." Lorelai dragged in a deep breath between kisses. "How long do you think we have before Rory notices we're missing?"

"I saw her carrying her Harry Potter book out to the courtyard, and your parents are with her now."

"Oh, good." Lorelai tugged him toward their room. "Then we have time."

"Lorelai." Luke pulled on Lorelai's hand until she was forced to stop in her attempt to haul him off. "I _heard_ you," he repeated. "You nearly calling me your boyfriend."

"Is that what we are?" Lorelai asked casually, wondering if he could hear how hard her heart was beating.

"What do you want me to be?"

"That, pal, is the $64,000 question I've been asking myself since last night. The answer to the round of Final Jeopardy. You said we're a couple. Boyfriend and girlfriend? Are we suddenly going to dinner and a movie when we get back, because I think we've blown way past that." Lorelai huffed. "Boyfriend makes me feel like I'm Rory's age. You're not a boyfriend."

At the flash of hurt in his eyes, she groaned. "Not saying this right. You're not a boyfriend because you're _Luke_. You're not someone I can just date. Why do you think we never did before? We both know how it goes for me." Gaining confidence, her rant picked up speed. "I want a middle with you. I don't want you to just be my boyfriend. Don't you get it?"

Relieved, he pulled her into a hug. "I got it," he said into her hair. "Loud and clear."

"Good."

"Think they could hear you back in the States."

Lorelai goosed him for that.

* * *

An hour later, they joined Rory in the small courtyard, her attention still focused on her copy of _Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire._

"Everything OK?" she asked absently as Lorelai and Luke took the remaining seats at the small wrought-iron table.

"All good on this end," Lorelai replied. "Let's see what's on the agenda for today?"

She pulled out Rory's battered itinerary, not caring that it was now early afternoon. The once-pristine packet was now battered and torn in a couple of places. Items were scratched out in multi-colored ink, and notes had been jotted throughout the schedule by three different types of handwriting. She flipped to the fourth page, only to have the first three give up its fruitless battle with the staple holding them in place and flutter to the table in defeat. She scooped them up and shuffled them to the back of the itinerary.

"Thanks to your grandparents, we got through the entire 4-day itinerary in one day, and that includes battle re-enactments," Lorelai observed.

Rory arched an eyebrow. "That's really quite impressive. Grandma and Grandpa know how to economize their time."

"That's one way to describe it."

"You know," Rory said thoughtfully, "there's this one bookstore …"

Lorelai slammed the itinerary on the table and pointed at Luke. "Ha!"

He rolled his eyes. "I didn't take the bet."

"I still won!" Lorelai crowed.

"That was a sucker's bet to begin with," Luke countered.

"Still a winner!"

"When has Rory ever met a bookstore she hasn't gone in?"

"This is a very accurate observation," Rory replied. "Speaking of that, Grandpa offered to ship another box of books home for me. We just need to take what we want to ship by their hotel."

Lorelai sat back on her chair with a huff. "Couldn't you flutter your eyelashes and get him to pay for the rest? We all know there's going to be more."

"Eyelash flutters are quite powerful. I only use them sparingly and for the greater good."

"Or to spare Mommy's pocketbook." Lorelai sighed. "Look, I hope they didn't bother you about…"

Rory slowly placed her bookmark in the novel and closed it. She tapped it against the table. "No. They were talking about it, I knew that much. But I didn't want to know." She turned her focus to Luke. "I'm really sorry."

He gave a half-shrug. "Not the first time I've had parents hate me on first sight."

"Got a reputation, huh, Butch?" Lorelai teased.

Luke swallowed hard and stared at his hands. He really missed having something to do with them, and it wasn't the first time on the trip he realized that wiping down counters was a crutch for him. He flexed his fingers. It was time to do the right thing. "I was thinking," he began.

Lorelai narrowed her eyes at him. "Oh no. Stop right there. No thinking allowed. Right, Rory?"

"I think thinking's a rather useful skill," Rory said with all seriousness.

"Not in this case."

"Lorelai," Luke said, wishing she would make this easier for him.

She pushed herself up from the table. "Nope, not listening."

"Your parents are right about one thing," he said, talking over her. "I should go home."

Lorelai wandered to the edge of the brick courtyard and wrapped her arms around herself, almost as she was trying to curl herself into a ball. "See? See where this thinking thing gets him?"

Rory reopened her book, clearly content to let them banter in their normal manner. Lorelai once commented on Rory's ability to tune anything out, and Luke had several live demonstrations of that particular talent over the past few weeks.

Rory suddenly blinked twice, then slammed the book back shut as his words registered. She gaped at him. "You can't go home!"

"I have to eventually, Rory," Luke told her gently. "I was only supposed to be gone three weeks."

"It can't be three weeks yet. Is it? Has it?" Rory frantically looked between them, then lunged for the itinerary. She sorted through the papers, rapidly calculating dates, though they all knew he wasn't wrong.

"This trip is supposed to be you and your mom," Luke continued, hoping that it didn't sound like every word was a tiny stab in the gut. "You've been planning it ever since you were in diapers."

Rory gave up on the itinerary and tossed it back on the table. "Not quite that young, I think I was at least in kindergarten.'

"You let me crash it." And he had loved every second of it. Well, the showdowns with Lorelai's mother definitely weren't a highlight, but Lorelai's defense of him was. And Lorelai wanting to be in a relationship … it was like every Christmas and birthday had landed on his doorstep all at once. "But this has always been a you and your mom thing, You need the time together before you go off to college."

"But, I don't want you to go," Rory said, her voice pitched perilously close to a whine. "You're the Xander to our Buffy and Willow. The Aragorn to our Legolas and Gimli. Right, Mom? We have plans for Spain. Big plans."

Luke narrowed his eyes at her. "You're not getting me in a bullfighter's uniform."

Rory gasped. "You snitched!" she scolded Lorelai, who spun around in indignation.

"I did not!" she protested.

"Snitchey McSnitcher!" Rory accused.

Lorelai stuck her tongue out at her. "Sticks and stones may break my bones …"

"Don't even start, Snitchey." Rory proceeded to ignore Lorelai, and Luke recognized the moment the younger Gilmore was pulling out her greatest weapon. Not the eyelash flutters. Oh no, this was far more dangerous and … Rory turned big doe eyes to him, and his resistance crumbled under the onslaught. "You know, you've come along with us this far. Please stay."

Helpless, he looked over Rory's shoulder at Lorelai. "You know how I feel," Lorelai said quietly, and the seriousness in her voice affected him far more than any pop culture quip she could throw his way.

He was floored every time that that Lorelai and Rory vocally reminded him that they wanted him to stick around. They had shared their once-in-a-lifetime experience with him without any sort of reservation. Lorelai wanted her middle with him. In the back of his mind, Luke had been so prepared for the opposite, for them to cheerfully inform him that they would see him at home, that he didn't know how to respond. Being wanted took some getting used to.

Luke had responsibilities. He couldn't just ask Caesar to keep running the place in his stead just because he wanted to extend his vacation. What about Lane and the temps he hired to cover the trip? Surely they had other summer plans. He wanted to see to some repairs on the Crap Shack before the girls got back, and had already started jotting down a list he kept stashed in his pocket. He wanted to set the town straight on a few things so they wouldn't harass Lorelai about their relationship when she and Rory got home. Then there was Nicole, and he at least needed to make some sort of apology. Every lesson about responsibility he'd ever learned flitted through his brain.

He gazed at one set of imploring blue eyes. Then the other, filled with something he barely dare name because it was so new and fragile.

Then he smiled.


	12. Sleeping in Light

_Chapter 12: Sleeping in Light_

 _"This is the second boarding call for United Flight 4924 to Hartford Bradley International Airport."_

They were running through the airport as fast as they dared, which really meant it was a very speedy walk. It felt like every other traveler in Newark was going in the opposite direction from where they were headed. Why the hell did the airport have to be so big, Luke grumbled to himself. It wasn't as claustrophobic as JFK or LaGuardia, and who in their right mind would put not one, but two airports so close on a small island? But Newark was huger that it needed to be, and it didn't help that their flight from Europe had landed in terminal C. It had taken entirely too long to clear customs, meaning they had to rush to terminal A to catch the domestic flight to Hartford.

"Hurry, hurry, hurry!" Rory panted as they wove around other passengers.

Lorelai stumbled, nearing tripping over a luggage cart in the process. She hastily apologized and spun around in a circle while hopping on one leg. "Ow, my shoe!"

Luke's internal rant skidded to a halt as he whipped around to see Lorelai with her foot in the air. The heel on the boot that she wore had snapped clean off. "Why did you decide to wear heels in an airport?" he scolded, not for the first time that day.

"Because they were cute!" Lorelai protested with a pretty little pout. "Even the customs agent commented on it." She hopped a step and sighed. "Now the heel's broken, and I don't have any other shoes in my carry-on."

"I'll carry you. Here." Luke swung his duffel off his shoulder and shoved it in Lorelai's arms.

"You can't carrying me through the airport," she said, tossing the bag's strap over her shoulder so it could jockey for space with the hot pink purse that had become her favorite.

"Lorelai, the gate is right there." Luke indicated where Rory was, having abandoned them in her quest to get home on time. He crouched slightly so Lorelai could grab his shoulders. "Here, hop on my back."

Lorelai scrambled onto his back, gripping his shoulders tightly as she did so. He hooked his hands beneath her thighs, and she wrapped her legs around his waist. She shifted the weight of their bags so it wasn't all one-sided. "Have you been working out?"

"It's called hauling all your crap around Europe for six weeks," Luke muttered as he started toward the gate once more.

Lorelai kissed Luke's hair, still hat-less. Eighteen ball caps had been slain throughout Europe in the name of Lorelai's pickiness over Luke's headgear. "And I love you for it."

Just as the words registered, before Luke could even begin to parse what she had just told him, reality intruded once more.

 _"Now boarding all rows for United Flight 4924 to Hartford Bradley International Airport."_

Right. Plane first, then wondering if Lorelai had really just confessed her love or if she was just being Lorelai. Ignoring the stares, Luke all but jogged down the terminal with Lorelai on his back. They were nearly to the gate when he frowned, recognizing the area. A quick glance to his left revealed the large bank of monitors informing travelers of arrivals and departures, and he stopped. Everything almost seemed the way it had been six weeks earlier, with the exception of the nearby shop showing a very staid purse in crocodile green that wasn't Lorelai at all.

Lorelai tugged at his shirt. "Hey, hey, what're you doing? We don't need to look at a flight board. They're practically serenading us at the gate. Bob Barker is telling us to come on down, and we're about to miss our chance at the Showcase Showdown."

"No, no, it's just. This is it." Because he couldn't point, Luke nodded at the monitors.

"It?" Brow furrowed, Lorelai followed his gaze.

"Um … where you called me when your purse was stolen."

"Oh." He felt her smile against his hair. "So this is where you decided, why the hell not, and be Clint Eastwood riding to our rescue?"

"Something like that."

"I'm glad you came." She pressed her cheek to him.

"So am I." Their gazes fell on the lines of text showing the departing flights for Paris.

"Hey," Luke said after a moment.

"Yeah?"

"I love you too."

Lorelai's breath hitched, and her hold on him tightened. More than anything, he wanted to kiss her at that moment, in front of those boards that changed their lives. It was insane and romantic and so unlike him, that he was convinced Lorelai's brand of crazy was continuing to affect him.

Luke hoped it would for the rest of their lives.

Rory ran out of the gate area. She rolled her eyes at their more than slightly mushy looks at the monitors. "I don't know what the two of you are doing, but they're going to give your seats to this guy and his tuba if you don't get to the gate right now. Hurry!"

* * *

Nearly three hours later, they stumbled out of the truck before the Crap Shack. Originally, Rory's now battered-beyond-recognition itinerary had called for them to take a shuttle home from the airport, but Luke had proven himself a savior once more when he revealed that his truck was parked in long-term parking.

"Home," Rory gasped, lunging for the mailbox. She wrapped her arms around it, clinging to it for dear life.

"Hey, I was going to hug the mailbox!" Lorelai protested.

"You can hug the Jeep. Or the porch. The mailbox's mine."

"Fine, I'll take the porch. What do you want to hug?" Lorelai turned back to the truck, where Luke was grabbing their luggage from the back.

"The bed," he said with all honestly.

"Bed," Rory sobbed. "My bed."

"Oh, now look what you've done." Lorelai peeled an exhausted Rory off the mailbox and steered her toward the house. "You've set her off again."

"Not bed yet," Rory mumbled as Lorelai unlocked the door and all but shoved her inside. "Must say hello to my socks first. Sock drawer good. Bed better. And my books. Books are the best."

Lorelai flipped the light switch. "God," she huffed. "Don't trip."

Luke followed them with the backpacks, drawing up short at the number of boxes stacked just inside the door. More were in the living room. "How many are there?"

Lorelai did a quick count. "Twelve, and I think nos. 13 and 14 are still on the way."

"I'll build her another bookcase," Luke volunteered as Rory's attention was caught by the boxes. She wandered to each one, chattering to the books inside about how she was going to read them and take care of them and make sure they had a nice place to live.

"She might need an entire extra room at this rate," Lorelai muttered.

Luke merely gazed at her, then went to deposit Rory's backpack in her room and Lorelai's upstairs.

"You don't have to do that," Lorelai called up the stairs.

"It's the only way I'm guaranteeing I won't trip over them some time in the next three months, because if I leave them in the living room, they're not moving until October." Luke came back down shortly thereafter, pausing just long enough to give Lorelai a kiss. "If you two are good, I'll head home."

"I think we're good," Lorelai said, nodding to Rory, who in the span of two minutes had nestled herself among her boxes of books and fallen asleep.

"She's gonna be sore when she wakes up," Luke observed. "Do you want me to carry her to her bedroom?"

"Nah, I'll take care of it." Lorelai reached for Rory, pulling her daughter's dead weight into her arms. "C'mon, Hermione, time to sleep."

"No, wanna sort through the books," Rory murmured.

"Tomorrow," Lorelai soothed, steering Rory toward her room.

"Stop by in the morning?" Luke asked as Lorelai led Rory away.

She tossed him a smile over her shoulder. "Yeah. No groceries, remember? Going to need coffee."

"Since when haven't you needed it? Need I remind you want that stuff does to you?"

Lorelai laughed and pushed Rory into her bedroom so she could kiss Luke goodnight.

* * *

Rory was right. Bed was _amazing_.

There was nothing better than being in your own bed, especially after weeks of sleeping in beds that ranged from narrow dormitory bunks to the luxurious king-sized bed in Rome. That had been Lorelai's favorite bed for quite a number of reasons that may or may not include the persons she actually shared said bed with.

Lorelai turned onto her side, staring at the empty space next to her. She absently ran her hand over the mattress. The next stop after Rome where they were able to avoid staying in a dormitory was in Zurich, and Rory made her feelings on Luke and Lorelai absolutely clear when she promptly threw herself across one of the double beds in the room and ordered them to share the other bed.

Since then, there had been just a couple of nights when they hadn't shared the same bed, and Lorelai had gotten used to him being there. Before Luke, she never had a boyfriend that she slept with for more than two consecutive nights. She had gotten used to his large bulk, the way she tucked herself against him when she was cold, the whispered conversations while they waited for Rory to wake up, and the frantic lovemaking when Rory slipped out to get them breakfast and give them time alone.

But now they were home. She loved her large bed and being able to hog all the covers and blankets to her heart's content. She could sprawl as she pleased. She certainly wasn't missing Luke. Right? Right.

Lorelai closed her eyes and tried to relax. She _should_ be asleep. Her body was screaming with exhaustion, and her body clock had been abandoned somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean. Breathe in. Out. Count sheep. OK, coffee cups. When that failed, she reached in her nightstand for her never-fail method of curing insomnia. Pleasurable and a guaranteed one-way trip into slumberland. She flicked on the small vibrator she pulled out and listened to the low whirl as it pulsed in her hand. With a sigh, she turned it off and tossed it back in the drawer.

Then she sat up and shoved her feet in slippers. "Rory!" she yelled.

By the time Lorelai got to the bottom of the stairs, Rory had come out of her room. "What's wrong?" Rory muttered, pushing her disheveled hair out of her face. "Bed good. Yelling bad."

"I've got to ask you a favor, kid. The hugest favor." Lorelai hopped from foot to foot a bit nervously Rory worried her lip, hoping she wouldn't have to spell it out.

"Couldn't we wait for morning to break the Guinness record for biggest pancake?"

"Definitely on the bucket list, but that's not it."

Rory sighed, then looked around the quiet house. "It's kind of weird, just the two of us, isn't it?" she observed. "It's like the last six weeks never happened."

"Good weird or bad weird?" Lorelai hedged.

Rory studied her closely, and Lorelai saw the moment her overly bright daughter drew the right conclusion. "Mom, go get him." Rory waved at the stairs. "The guy sleeping over at the house rule you have? Banished. Finito. Over and out. Just please go get Luke so I can go back to sleep. And buy me earplugs, because I really don't want to hear the two of you having sex."

"You are the best, kid." Lorelai kissed her forehead.

"Yeah, yeah. Bed." Rory stumbled back into her room and slammed the door for extra emphasis.

"Love you!" she yelled and ran back upstairs to exchange slippers for flip-flops.

* * *

He _hated_ his single bed.

Luke stood over the much-maligned piece of furniture, arms crossed over his chest, angry because on one hand he couldn't sleep, and the next because his bed was entirely too small. It didn't make sense considering it was the same bed he'd had since he was a teenager, and the dormitory bunks in Europe were far smaller.

No, if he was really being honest, he was hating that he wasn't at the Crap Shack with Lorelai and Rory. Despite all the time they'd spent together, the no-guys-allowed-overnight rule at the Gilmore home hadn't been discussed. And, quite frankly, he wasn't going to be the one to do it. He didn't want to push Lorelai and Rory beyond what they were comfortable with. There had been enough men in their lives inflicting their will on them, and he wasn't going to be another one of those. He was patient. He had patience in abundance. He had been patient for seven years, and a wild risk had paid off in spades.

But now that he and Lorelai were starting down their middle together, that patience had run out. He wanted to be in her bed, wake up next to her, have her shampoo mix with his body wash, have her red sweater turn his undershirts pink in the wash. For the first time since Rachel, he was eager to see where life took him next.

Apparently, that road was going to lead him to a furniture store.

Luke glanced across the apartment, at Jess' side of the living space. He felt a pang of guilt. No, next on that road was to track down his nephew and see if he was doing OK in California.

He plopped down on the sofa and scooped up the remote. He tolerated a Jane Seymour informercial for some jewelry line for all of 30 seconds before turning it back off in disgust. He had even run out of Harry Potter to read, having finally caught up to Rory on the flight back from Europe. He promised her that he wouldn't start the fifth book without her, and thankfully they had such little time between flights that they couldn't be tempted by the airport bookstores.

He supposed he could go start inventory, see what he needed to get from his supplier to get the diner back up and running. It had been closed down for a week, after Luke insisted that Caesar take the time off with pay. He had entered the building from the back, immediately trudging up to his apartment, but something seemed a bit odd about the diner itself. Probably just the way the furniture was stacked, Luke reasoned, then wearily got back to his feet. He'd do inventory, go over the books, then push himself through a full day of work. That would get his body clock back in working order.

He pulled open the door, and Lorelai all but fell over the threshold. He grabbed her just in time to keep her from falling at his feet. "Hey!"

"Hi!" Lorelai said breathlessly, and he wondered if she had run all the way from the house.

Concerned, he led her inside. "Are you OK? Is Rory OK?"

Lorelai waved her hand. "Oh, dead to the world. As you saw, the kid can sleep anywhere. I, on the other hand, can't. Jet lag, you know."

"Yeah, I know the feeling." At any other time, his hormones would be doing a happy dance at Lorelai standing in his apartment wearing nothing but a thin tank and pajama pants with goldfish on them in the middle of the night. Now he just wanted to haul her over to his bed and sleep. With her in his arms, he could probably actually get some rest. Luke tossed a hateful look at his bed once again. Or one of them would fall out, hit their head on the nightstand, then they'd be spending what remained of the night at the hospital.

"I am here to tell you that it's your lucky day," Lorelai informed him, pulling his attention away from the myriad of ways he planned to burn that single bed.

"How's that?"

Lorelai's face lit up with a smile. "Rory and I have banished the guy rule. Unanimous proclamation."

It took a few seconds for the words to sink in. "I'm sorry, what?" Luke managed.

Lorelai grabbed his hand, squeezing it tightly in both of hers. "Come home with me. Please. I mean, if you want to. You don't have to, but the option is there if you would like to, and I've gotten used to you-"

Go home. With her. To the Crap Shack. No more guy rule. His brain rapidly caught up with what Lorelai was telling him. "OK."

"OK?" Lorelai's voice was as hopeful as he felt.

Luke couldn't stop himself from grinning. "Yes."

"Good."

Lorelai kept Luke's hand in hers and led him home.

* * *

Thank you all for indulging in this "what if" tale! Because plotbunnies are a dangerous thing, the story for our intrepid trio in this now-AU storyline isn't finished. Stay tuned for "How to Train Your Dragonfly," an AU take on season 4.


End file.
